When Worlds Collide
by Skylar Felton
Summary: [COMPLETE] A fairy-tale situation doesn't go like it should - it's not a good thing Harry showed up at a Muggle's. But then there's also Hogwarts to worry about...it seems that this time, the Dark Lord may win... if not for a betrayal. [Pre-OoTP]
1. The Accidental Summoning

Chapter 1: The Accidental Summoning

_Author's Notes re: Chapter 1:_

A 'caravan' is what's known as a 'trailer' in parts of the world. A mini-house on wheels sort of thing.

~ ~

"Oh, God," Trina said in mock anguish, collapsing onto a berth in her friend's room – a caravan outside the house. "Why did I even ask? I should have known you were doing something that's related to 'Harry Potter'-" Tony looked up from her computer and opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Trina's quick amendment, "-or to be more specific, Draco Malfoy!"

Tony only smiled. After all, she could hardly deny it.

"What is it with you and the bad ones?" Trina asked. "You always go for the bad characters, and your dating history isn't adorned with a shiny halo either."

Tony grinned and poked her tongue out at her best friend. "I'm just masochistic, I guess."

Katrina and Evelyn – more commonly known, as Trina and Tony – were as close as two friends could get without morphing into conjoined twins. Although, as a previous experience had taught them, they couldn't live in the same house for more than a week before all energies were turned from laughing, joking and submerging themselves in all things 'Harry Potter', to just trying to keep their claws retracted. Such a thing is hardly surprising, considering that they only had two things in common: their liking for animals – which Trina had a much more potent case of; and their liking of the 'Harry Potter' series – which Tony had the more potent case of.

"Poor you," Trina said, in mock sympathy, "Having the love of your life existing only in your head, and his means of protection and life-purpose dependant on a stick." She ducked a flying cushion.

"He's _not_ the 'love of my life'!" Tony retorted. "And at least he has a better name than the boyfriend of yours in _your_ head – 'Bon-Bon'." She said the nickname as if she were speaking of some foul-smelling, terminal disease.

"Well, it's better than 'Ron'," Trina defended herself. "I had to call him something else."

Silence descended over the caravan. Even the small fridge by the bed shuddered a little and went quiet. Seconds passed before Tony spoke, with a small smile.

"We're really sad, aren't we?" She couldn't help the smile broadening at the idea. "Our 'boyfriends', as we put it, are book characters some woman on the other side of the world in a train made up, and we still squabble over them."

She dissolved in laughter, which quickly spread to Trina.

"Well," Trina responded, chuckling, "at least since we know they're not real, we can work it how we want, and have a happily-ever-after ending."

Tony turned back to the screen of her laptop, that she had warming her legs as she browsed various 'Harry Potter' sites. She noticed she'd opened a site that had a peculiar address, which looked to be in a foreign language. She didn't know how she got there – just followed a link, she supposed.

"Hey, look at this," she said to Trina. "Some mystical site here is saying that 'if you have the faith to voice the impossible and then click this icon here, the aforementioned impossibility will show itself as a concealed reality'." She couldn't help the wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Trina blinked.

"Okay," she said, in a tone effectively communicating her opinion of the ridiculous notion. "Really, what some people will believe these days…"

Tony agreed, rolling her eyes. "Is someone saying that everything people think is impossible, is actually real, if they say they think it's fake, and then click a button on a conveniently-available website?"

"When you put it like that," Trina commented, "it sounds even worse! If stuff like that were real though, it would be creepy. I mean, imagine if Hogwarts was real, and the Harry Potter series was a biography or telling-about-the-past thing."

"Historical reference?" Tony guessed.

"That's what I said," Trina responded with a perplexed look as if her friend had just repeated what she'd said down to the tone of her voice.

Tony laughed. "Yeah, that would be cause for concern. I'd hate to think the Big Bad of the world was a wizard who named himself something sounding like a bad cheese!"

Her face grew curious and she said, "I wonder what would happen if we click on it…maybe there's an animation or something."

"It'll be one of two things," Trina said. "One – absolutely nothing whatsoever will happen, so people would just sit there and click it until they realised just what they were doing, and that their life was very tragic. Or, two – you'd get a subscription form to fill out, so you'd actually have to _pay_ to hear that rubbish."

Tony grinned sardonically. "And the correct answer is…" She paused for dramatic effect, before clicking the icon. "…drum roll, the envelope please…"

Her speech was never finished, as the monitor blinked to black, and the fan inside the unit gave an extra loud whir, before coming to a stop as the computer turned off.

Tony was incredulous, and a distinctly unimpressed expression grew on her face.

"I'm sorry, contestant," she continued. "Both answers were incorrect." The envelope says… '_A filthy, rotten virus'!_ Stupid computer, stupid Internet, stupid anti-virus software that was obviously sleeping on the job!"

Disgusted, she slammed the computer shut and returned it to the folded-out table.

"Do you think it's serious?" Trina asked. "Like, a really bad virus?"

Tony had her lips pressed tightly together in annoyance. "Well, usually when it packs up for whatever reason, it's fine after a re-boot. I'll try it tomorrow."

"Yeah," Trina said. "You'd been online for too long anyway. It's getting really late now – your family went to bed ages ago I think; all the lights are out in the house. Now, where's your sleeping bag in this mess? I need to make my bed up on this thing." She motioned to one of the side berths in the caravan. "Hey, throw me a couple of your pillows, will you?"

Tony was still simmering over her failed computer while she got ready for bed, and climbed between the warm sheets. Her mood was soon brightened with Trina frivolously making idle talk, and composing a short, funny, improvised story entitled, "Bon-Bon and the Order at McDonalds".

Even after the red numbers of the nearby digital alarm clock flicked to '12:00', they were still talking and laughing…until a confused, young-sounding, British voice outside loudly exclaimed, "Where are we? This isn't Hogwarts…"

**Author's End Comments:**

_Your comments and input would be great, and hugely appreciated. This is one of the few stories I've ever written where I haven't had a fully thought-out plot right from the word 'go'. This is so I'm open for suggestions from readers/reviewers._


	2. Waiting and Wondering

_Author's Response to Reviews:_

An overwhelming response to the first chapter – over 30 reviews, and I hadn't even introduced any of the HP characters! Thanks heaps. Reviews do so much in motivating someone to write. If I know there are people out there reading my work, and enjoying it, updates are likely to be much sooner. So you reviewers are just as important as a writer, in creating a story! :)

Yes, the character 'Tony' is based on me; more to the point – the character 'Tony' (legal name 'Evelyn') _is_ me. And my best friend really is Trina. (Note to _Zailie Eauphana Marinu_: There's an explanation of my seemingly-unrelated nickname on my website – which is linked to, in my profile) So those characters are already fully built, and living in the small country of New Zealand. Everything we say and do in the story, will be fitting to our real character – so most likely will be what we'd actually say or do in those situations. (The discussion about the name "Bon-Bon" was an excerpt from a conversation that actually happened – a fact that Trina found highly amusing when she read this.)

Note to _Sinaris_: Although parts of your criticism would technically be flaming, I do see where you're coming from. And I do take flames seriously. That is, after I laugh at them. Thankyou for your balancing praise on my writing technique, and as for my story being too foolish-schoolgirl-daydream, I'm trying my best to avoid that common occurrence in a fic. Silly little 'I-met-HP-and-we-fell-in-love-and-were-friends-with-everyone' stories annoy me to no end, too. So I'm trying to make this story more than that; to make it a story that many people would be interested to read, not just Trina and me. A large element of the story will be adventure – those from Hogwarts trying to find their way back. Any relationship-building will be secondary.

Note to _Madame Yoshimoto_: Uh, I guess that's a compliment…as far as flames go. But seriously, as for indulging my fantasies…none of that here. Besides the fact that in my fantasies Draco would be several years older anyway, I'd really much rather be a mermaid in a nice warm sea somewhere, than have 4 magic people inconveniently turn up at my door when I'm trying to have a relaxing night :) So, again, I'm trying to have a story that's not the schoolgirl fantasy norm.

But, you all didn't come here just to hear my Author's Ramblings, so…on with the story…!

~ ~

**Chapter 2: Waiting and Wondering**

Tony and Trina stopped abruptly, in mid-laugh. By the bright moonlight filtering down through the caravan's small skylight, they could see each other freeze, listening. The only sound that came was of the bitter wind, and of an empty cardboard box from a storeroom over the road, as it was being blown roughly down the street, the hollow thuds protesting loudly to the treatment of the wind.

"You did hear that, right?" Tony asked, tentatively. "Not the box. Before the box."

Trina paused a little longer, before responding, "I thought I heard a voice- yeah, yeah, I did. But you know what? It was probably some idiot from across the road being a dolt. Nothing interesting." As if to emphasise her point, she drew Tony's sleeping bag further up around her shoulders, and rolled over.

'Hastings Youth Centre', a youth-based activity centre, could be seen from Tony's end window when she drew back the curtain. A few lights from it were winking through the waving boughs of nearby trees. Several silhouettes could be made out by the main entrance, accompanied by the sound of a skateboard being noisily dropped to the ground, and the occasional disruptive cheer rising noisily into the air.

"Yeah, probably," Tony agreed, watching the tops of several heads just visible over the fence next to the driveway. The heads grew bodies as they walked across the driveway entrance in full view, swinging their arms or fiddling with cellphones, still talking jovially. People from the Youth Centre would still be trickling home for the next half hour, Tony guessed.

A streetwise-looking girl in the group that had just walked by turned back, an amused grin on her face. She accompanied her friends in a mocking laugh, which was blatantly directed at several figures still behind the fence.

Tony drew the curtain closed and lay down, listening to the snippets of energetic conversation from various homebound youth.

"-and then I just told him where to-"

"-check out this text-"

"-maybe someone botched a spell-"

"-there's a party at Danny's-"

_Hang on_, Tony thought, sitting up again suddenly. _That spell comment's not supposed to be there…_

Trina had evidently come to the same conclusion, as she'd sat up too, an equally puzzled look on her face.

"Is there a Wiccan out there," Trina began, "or someone who's been exposed to more damaging Harry Potter radiation than _us_?"

"I don't know," Tony replied, listening for more of the strange conversation now that the bulk of the noisy youth had moved on.

"-just go up to any place and knock, or something," came another British voice.

"Oh, and say what?" came the mocking reply, in an arrogant drawl. " 'Excuse me, Muggle, but we've been transported to the middle of a great big nowhere, we don't know how or why, and we want to go back to all the other nice witches and wizards and other magic things'?"

Tony incredulously turned to face Trina and whispered, "I'm going with the damaging Potter-radiation theory."

The heated discussion outside continued.

"Look," a voice piped up. This one sounded female. "It may be not our fault that we don't have our wands – as we don't know how we got here, maybe they were deliberately kept back by the person that sent us."

An indignant scoff interrupted her before she continued, "So we can't get the Knight Bus. But unless you three want to stand out here and freeze to death, we're going to have to ask for help."

Silence followed the girl's speech. From the silence, Tony gathered that although the rest of the group hadn't liked the idea, they didn't appear to have much of an option.

Trina faced Tony with a sombre expression and whispered seriously, "We can all learn a lesson from this…" she paused for dramatic effect, poised as if she were giving a speech to a class. "…Don't take drugs."

Tony couldn't hold in the loud laugh that escaped her at this, but she hurriedly clapped her hands over her mouth, wondering if she'd alerted the group outside. The last thing she needed were hallucinating teens banging on the windows.

"There," continued the feminine voice. "There's obviously someone awake in there."

Tony silently cursed herself.

For a few minutes Tony heard no more – no talking, no approaching footfalls – and she hoped the group had moved on.

_Thud, thud._

The knocks on the caravan door echoed dully around the interior. With her hands still clapped tightly over her mouth, Tony stared wide-eyed at her friend, who was looking back with an expression that had, 'Now you've done it', written all over it.

Tony was glad that she'd finally got into the habit of locking the caravan door at night. When you had plenty of electronic equipment and lived in the centre of town, you couldn't take too many chances.

The girls stayed quiet, wondering if the visitors would go away.

"They're not going to answer," someone said, worriedly.

"Excuse me, in there," the girl quietly called. "We really need your help. It's really cold out here and we have no where to go."

Silence.

The girl continued, with a note of desperation now.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late at night. But I know you're in there – I can see you sitting up, through a chink in the curtain-" 

Tony lowered her hands from her face, and made a mental note to give herself a good kick in the head, in the morning.

"-if you could only tell us where to go, or anything that could help us."

The voice stopped.

"You know," Trina said resignedly. "They sound almost genuine. Why not help them out a little? You could point them towards a…police station, or something." 

She hesitated, and then added as an afterthought, "Besides, if they're bad, you could just do Tae Bo on their asses." She grinned at her defence plan.

Tony rolled her eyes, although she doubted Trina could see it. "It's an exercise regime, not a kick-butt one."

Trina smiled, "Yeah, well. Whatever works."

Tony pushed back the duvet from her bed, and slowly brought her legs around to the side of the mattress and stood. Already her legs, knees peeking out from her oversized t-shirt, were starting to get goosebumps. 

"This cold is insane," she commented. Trina only sighed. Tony knew she felt the cold easily, and that it probably wasn't nearly as cold as she made out – a fact which Trina constantly felt the need to remind her of.

She switched on the fairylights, bringing a soft colourful glow over the room, as she crossed it to switch on the heater before turning to the door. When she'd switched the lights on, footsteps that had slowly began to trudge away stopped suddenly and quickly returned.

Tony reached for her keys and unlocked the door…holding her breath as she pulled the handle down to push it open.


	3. The Confrontation and Introduction

_Author's Comment: I thought it would be just too mean of me to post yet another chapter (chapter 2) and at the end still not have the HP characters introduced to you all. So I continued on to write this next chapter, so they could be posted at the same time. Hopefully that alleviated some pain for some of you :)_

**~ ~**

**Chapter 3: The Confrontation and Introduction**

Tony took in the sight of the girl standing in front of her.

She had a thick mane of brown hair, being blown about roughly by the relentless wind, as she struggled to keep it out of her face. She pulled some back just in time to feel a fat drop of rain land unceremoniously on her nose. She looked skyward, a little worried.

Why anyone would come outside in this cold was beyond Tony.

"What, are you crazy? Or just…" Well, according to her, there was no alternative. "…crazy?"

Behind the girl stood two boys. Tony guessed them to be about 15 or 16. But then, she was never very good with guessing ages.

One of the boys had unkempt black hair, and round glasses. He looked as if he'd just been ordered to march into battle and he had no idea just what he was supposed to be fighting. Tony almost smiled at this.

Next to him stood a tall red-haired boy, with a spattering of freckles and a wary look on his face.

At first that appeared to be all of them, and Tony was about to speak to them when she noticed another.

He was standing further back, as if he was trying to disassociate himself from the other three as much as possible, without actually dooming himself to having to spend the night in the cold. He had white-blond hair, which Tony could see had been gelled back, although the wind had loosened it. His expression was surly, and he looked as if the world had just done him a personal injustice.

Strangest of all were their clothes. They weren't regular clothes at all. They each wore cloaks, and the surly blond in the back was clad in black from top to toe, so he almost blended effortlessly into the shadows.

Rather intimidating, really.

"We just need a place to stay. Can you tell us where? Or give us something to keep warm with?"

Tony's mind snapped back quickly to the situation as she realised the girl was talking to her.

A boisterous laugh and a voice projected over Tony's shoulder.

"Oh, man, you're joking, right?"

Tony turned to see Trina behind her, and to her confusion, Trina appeared to be addressing _her_.

"What?" she said, dumbly.

"You got some friends of yours to dress up as Harry Potter characters and come down here for a joke," Trina surmised.

At the mention of the name, the boy with the round glasses coloured slightly. He looked downward, and reached his arm up to his glasses to wipe away the raindrops that had landed there.

 "I don't come out in the cold to freeze to death for someone else's amusement," stated an unimpressed drawl. The blond at the back had stepped forward to speak, and now had a frustrated and impatient look on his face. "Now, you could stand there and question our existence until we're quite dead from our blood freezing in our veins," he continued. "Or you could do the decent thing and let us in were it's presumably not raining, and holds some semblance of warmth."

The other three looked suitable flustered and embarrassed at his blatant rudeness, and they appeared to be tensing in anticipation of the door being slammed shut.

Instead, Tony's face drew into a frown. She stared at the blond for a moment, with apparent disdain, before taking a few steps backward to allow for them to come in.

Apparently, this was all the invitation they were to get.

It was invitation enough.

All but the blond boy gratefully scrambled inside, automatically gravitating towards the heater.

"Feel free to stay out there if you like," Tony offered. "But this heater isn't going to heat the whole of Hastings, so you have 10 seconds to get in here, if you're going to. 10…9…8…"

Despite his previous confidence, the blond looked unsure. He had a choice.

"…7…6…5…"

Sacrifice his pride, or sacrifice his health? Apparently it was worth thorough consideration.

"…4…3…"

He looked almost longingly into the dimly lit caravan with the heater.

"…2…"

Decision made, he quickly approached the door and pulled himself into the caravan, just before the door was shut on, "1".

The four newcomers had sat on Trina's sleeping bag, with the fan heater pointing up at them. Initially Trina looked a little resentful, but had to admit there was nowhere else for them to sit.

"Before you comment on the state of this room," Trina defended herself, "let me say that it's not mine."

Tony looked incredulous.

"And I might add, then," she said, "that hers is usually worse."

She leaned down to the other berth that was laden with clothes and paper, and with a one-armed flourish, swept it all on the floor under the table.

"And that's how we clean up around here," she stated, as if giving a formal presentation.

She went back to her bed to sit on it and Trina resignedly sat on the other berth, all the while eyeing up the sleeping bag the four were sitting on, as if by staring at it hard enough it would give them an electric shock so they would get off it.

"So what's the story?" Tony said, leaning back against the window and putting a pillow over her feet. "You're here because…? Well, who are you first?"

She had to admit an uncanny likeness to four of the Harry Potter characters, but presumed that to be a deliberate show, as Trina had guessed.

The boy in glasses opened his mouth to speak, but Tony had beaten him to it.

"No, wait, let me guess," she said.

Trina glanced questioningly at her friend. Tony gave a subtle shrug back, motioned to the computer, and raised her eyebrows in silent speculation, before returning her attention to the newcomers. 

She pointed to each of them in turn, as she surmised, "You're Harry, you're Hermione, you're Bon-"she was quickly cut off by a loud cough from Trina, accompanied by a warning glare.

"I mean," Tony amended, "you're Ron. And I'd assume that the arrogant, loud-mouth, Dracula-wannabe here, is Draco Malfoy."

The blond looked particularly indignant. The remaining three looked at each other, unsure.

Trina spoke to her friend, "Tony, just how do you figure that the computer thing actually worked, and this might actually be them? Isn't that a little far out?"

"It's far out no matter how you look at it," Tony justified. "It's far out that four strangers would dress up to such extremes and brave the cold just for kicks."

She could see Trina weighing up the possibilities in her head.

"Ok," she finally said. She addressed the four, looking somewhat expectantly at Hermione. "Then answer me this – if you're who you say you are, you should know about this stuff: What is an Abatwa?"

Tony looked at her in surprise.

Hermione piped up almost immediately, sounding glad to be able to prove herself.

"They're the tiniest creatures in human form," she explained. "A peaceful race that live in the anthills of Southern Africa. They're very shy and only reveal themselves to children under four year old, or wizards, or pregnant women."

Trina relaxed. "Good enough for me, Hermione."

Hermione looked visibly relieved.

Trina stood. Tony approached her and mumbled, "You know what Abatwas are?"

"No idea," Trina responded with a smile.

"Then how do you-"

"It was in a fanfic you started to write a while ago, remember?" Trina prompted. I remember you researched it so you could use it in that story. Even though you never finished it. It'd be just like Hermione to know what you were going on about."

Tony smiled as she remembered. "Ah, gotcha."

"Now," Trina said seriously to the Hogwarts students, "considering what's happened here, it's hugely important that you don't just sit there."

"Because someone bad knows where we are?" The red-haired boy, Ron, asked fearfully.

"No," Trina responded. "Because I want the sleeping bag back."

And with a sudden vicious pull, she yanked it out from beneath them, sending them falling unceremoniously to the floor to land on their behinds.

~ ~

A/N: Remember to keep reviewing! As reviewing could greatly influence what happens in this story, that makes each reviewer a potential co-author…in an abstract kind of way :)


	4. Harry'sWorld Exposure Explanation

**_Author's Notes_**_: Sorry I haven't updated in a decent number of days – I folded heaps of newsletters and bills at work, putting them into envelopes, and some tendons in my wrist swelled, making it quite sore to type. That, and the fact I'd run into a brick wall with the story. Y'see, I _really_ don't want it to be just another Mary Sue without an actual plot-line/conflict – when I started writing this, I didn't even know what a Mary Sue _was_! Now I know, and I know that they're not often well received, I kinda feel stupid for even starting this. But I'll keep it going, for you loyal reviewers out there._

_Note to **Chihirosen2001**: You made a valid point – I guess I should have included at least some basic description of what Trina and Tony look like. Although really, that could be left in the Domain of Readers' Imagination. Suffice to say, we're both pakehas (white people) – if you really want a detailed mental picture, and don't want to think of it yourself, you can see pictures on my site (listed on my profile) – Tony's on the homepage (the up-to-date pic) and Trina's on pages 'Trina' and 'Friends'._

_I'd also like to make a thankyou note about **Steff** – she contacted me through MSN and doesn't let me get diverted from the story for too long without bringing me back to it. I think it's safe to say that it's because of her persistence and avid interest that I update as often as I do. So thanks to her, and all other loyal reviewers._

**Chapter 4: Harry's-World Exposure Explanation**

Trina stepped into the sleeping bag, and pulled it up around her shoulders with a loud rustling, in an effort to stay warm until the heater had sufficiently warmed the room. Small popping sounds could be heard on the roof as the occasional raindrop loudly hit.

Tony leaned back against the window and watched in silence as Hermione and the boys tried to disentangle themselves from the flurry of cloaks caused by their quick transition from the seat to the floor.

_This was not supposed to happen, _she thought. _They're not supposed to be here…why couldn't they have stayed only in our heads…they're not supposed to be here and make things complicated…someone tell me this is _not_ happening…_

She knocked her head backward on the window in her confusion and frustration, sending a hollow bang reverberating around the caravan. Trina and Hermione were looking at her questioningly, but she made no effort of explanation. She was now more concerned with how to explain what the three boys were looking at in apparent…disbelief? Disgust? Surprise? Maybe even a mixture of all three.

From their place on the floor they'd looked up, and of course, seen the row of cupboards lining the length of the caravan. Tony knew it wouldn't be long until their attention progressed from the cupboards, to see similar scenery around the rest of the caravan.

The object of their attention now occurred to Trina, and she looked at Tony with an expression that could have either been shock or amusement – Tony couldn't tell which.

Of course they'd find it a little…eccentric.

Tony's room looked like all the characters and scenes of the 'Harry Potter' movies must have been packed tightly into a fist-sized ball, before being placed on her bedroom floor, where it had apparently exploded, saturating the whole room with its Potter-dom.

_Just say something, anything, by way of explanation, _Tony mentally said to herself. _It'll sound fine._

"Uh…"

_Oh, way to go, you great dork…_

"What she means to say," interjected Trina, and Tony was grateful for the rescue, "is that she has a problem."

Okay, not grateful now.

"I…just really like the movies," Tony said, suddenly aware of the sheer number of the images surrounding them. "You knew about the movies, right? And the release of the books?"

Harry looked back from the image-lined cupboards, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Yeah," he said, as if he was regretfully admitting to a fault. "It wouldn't have happened, except…"

Trina slightly raised an eyebrow in silent questioning.

"I hate that Rita Skeeter!" Ron said suddenly, slicing the quiet with his flaming words.

"Okay…" ventured Tony. "Explain?"

"It was her ultimate revenge," Hermione enlightened her. "She knew she was going to be banned from the British wizarding community. It was because of Harry that she was banned – which is a good thing," she added, turning to reassure Harry, who had been beginning to look almost guilty. "So she set out to do what she does best," she continued. "To publicise every last fact about Harry, in a final showdown."

"But how did she do that?" Trina asked. "How does J. K. Rowling figure into that theory?"

"Wouldn't you think it a little unusual," Ron surmised, "if a fully thought-out and detailed character, along with its past, just walks randomly into your head while you're sitting on a train looking at trees whizzing past?"

"Well," Tony admitted, "I had thought it rather…fortunate."

"The night before Rita was to leave England," Hermione explained, "she turned into her animagus form-"

"A beetle, right? Trina said.

"Yes, a beetle. And she entered the home of an English writer. While she was there, she cast a Dream Recollection charm on the writer – Jo Rowling – and told her the whole story. When Jo woke up she didn't immediately remember, but over time – a short amount of time – all the facts spilled out into her memory. And she made the book series about Harry."

Tony looked at Harry pitifully. "Bummer for you."

Draco had been sitting in a corner, keeping unusually quiet, but still maintaining his unimpressed signature scowl.

"So now Boy-Wonder has fans all over the world," he stated, with obvious disgust.

"Well, so do you," Tony added. "Haven't you seen any of your many websites out there?"

His expression grew puzzled. "Web-what?"

Ron was looking particularly wary about the phrase, bringing with it images of large, scary spiders.

Hermione looked abashed. As her parents were muggles – non-magic people – she was well familiar with their technology such as computers and the Internet.

"I…haven't told them about the websites," she said.

"I knew they were out there," Harry stated. "But Dudley was furious that I became so popular, so he became extra mean and defensive of his things, so I was never able to get near the computer."

Draco looked rather proud, now that he knew people around the world admired him.

"A lot of people think you're hot," added Tony.

"Actually," Trina amended, "they think _he's _hot." She motioned to an image of 'Draco' lounged in a black leather couch of the Slytherin Common Room movie set. "Tom Felton. He's the guy that played your part."

Draco looked at the unmoving image with a disdainful sneer.

"I have _that, _pretending to be me?" he said, incredulously.

"So the slicked-back platinum hair would imply," Trina said sarcastically. "You're catching on."

"But he doesn't look anything like me!" Draco looked as if someone had just committed a huge offence against him, which according to him, they had.

Tony looked back and forth between Draco, and his portrayed movie character.

"Yeah, you're right," she concluded. "He's much hotter."

Judging by Draco's speechless and indignant reaction, this was the wrong answer.

Ron found this blatant hit at Draco's ego highly amusing, not surprisingly. All those familiar with Harry Potter and his life, courtesy of Rita Skeeter and Jo Rowling, knew of Ron and Draco's animosity.

Draco settled for darting a deep scowl at her, and silence again fell over the room, save for the popping sounds on the rooftop.

"Ok, this is gonna sound really weird considering what's happening here," Trina finally said, "but, where is everyone sleeping? Coz it's late, after all, and any of your issues-" she cast a look at the four new entrants, "-can be solved after I've had a good sleep. Whoever sent you away, if they did, probably won't be expecting you back soon."

"Six people can't stay in a 15-foot caravan!" Tony stated. "And how would I explain it to my family if they woke up and saw us all in the house?"

"Well, you have a large bed-" Trina started to say before Tony hurriedly interrupted.

"I am _not_ sharing my bed!" she exclaimed. "I think opening my room up to these guys in the first place was a bit of an overshare! The bed is _mine._"

"Well how about we sleep inside the house," Trina suggested, "and they can have the caravan? That way you won't have to actually sleep next to anyone."

"Oh, so I'm expected to leave these people in here with all my equipment, and with my _underwear drawer?!_"

Trina looked sceptical.

"Do you have any other suggestions?" she asked, more rhetorically than anything else.

Tony's glum, resigned expression effectively portrayed that she didn't.

"Fine," she said, walking over to her folded-out table. "But I'm taking my computer!" She proceeded to unplug the network cable, and folded up the power cable to take inside with her.

"I'm keeping this sleeping bag," Trina said possessively, pulling it tighter around her shoulders.

"I'll bring some sleeping bags and blankets in from the house," Tony said. She gathered up some pillows from her bed, getting ready to shift into the house.

"C'mon, Hermione," she continued. "You can come with us. If we need to, we can explain the arrival of _one_ friend my parents have never seen."

Trina gathered her things together and headed toward the door, Hermione and Tony in tow. After Tony passed out of the door, she turned back and said she'd be back soon with blankets.

"And Harry," she added, "don't let these two bust anything." She looked pointedly at Draco. "And you can sort out between you who's sleeping where, but _he's_ not going in my bed."

Her eyes held an amused glint as she looked at Draco through the doorframe.

The last thing she heard before the door creaked shut was Draco's muttering retort:

"He's _not_ hotter than me…"


	5. Like Faces on a Milk Carton

_Author's Notes: I realise that if I'm going to continue moving at this pace, I should really make my chapters longer, because not much is happening in each one. This may reduce the frequency I update – I've been posting as I finish my small bouts of inspiration. Which would you prefer – longer chapters or frequent updates?_

_And also, leave your email address in your review, or email me directly, if you'd like me to put you on my mailing list to notify you when I upload another chapter. This is so you don't have to keep checking back to see if I have or not._

**Chapter 5: Like Faces on a Milk Carton.**

The moon filtered in through the net curtains of the lounge, casting a soft silver blanket over the room and splashing each dark corner with its white liquid fire. As tired as Trina was, she had still managed to fall asleep rather quickly, despite Tony's refusal to close the drapes over the net curtains. Tony had insisted that if she was to be bored lying down quietly to stare at the ceiling, she was going to be bored with a view. Even if the view included an ironing board still folded-out from that afternoon, the TV and her father's video editing equipment, and the two other sleeping bodies sprawled haphazardly over thin mattresses on the floor.

On the couch, Tony restlessly shifted inside the sleeping bag belonging to one of her sisters, causing a rustle.

And again.

Silence.

And again.

"Stop it…" a sleepy voice fought its way groggily through the thick night air. Trina had been dragged to consciousness just enough to project these words, though Tony knew that she was still asleep more than anything else. Still, she thought it best to stay still before that voice, which had held an edge of annoyance, grew to be accompanied by conscious thought. Which would make for a not-happy Trina.

Tony sighed. She watched the VCR clock switch its thin, green, digital numbers to 01:13am.

_Wow_, she thought. _Has it really been only just over an hour since they came? Since my life was made a World of Weird?_

She replayed what had happened, in her head. She contemplated the heavy expression of the green-eyed boy in glasses; amusedly recalled Ron's face as she remembered Trina's nickname for him; admired Hermione for her ability to hold the waylaid group together; and thought bemusedly of the platinum blond egotist.

_I can see why nobody likes him_, she admitted to herself. _I mean, sure I go for the platinum thing he's got going, but a girl's gotta have her standards._

He was rather deceptive, to look at. Initially, he gave the impression of being weak. Although he had strong, piercing grey eyes, his skin looked pale and thin, and he looked as though it wouldn't take much to overpower him. This impression lasted as long as it took for him to open his mouth.

"He looks like something dead…" Tony quietly muttered into the room.

"I don't think he'd be too happy to hear that," an equally quiet voice came through a pillow.

Tony started a little in surprise, as she realised Hermione was still awake. Although, if she'd just appeared on the other side of the world with no explanation and no way of defending herself, she didn't think she'd be prone to sleep either.

She didn't know what to say to the meant-to-be-sleeping Gryffindor, so for several uncomfortable minutes she stayed silent, before venturing the words, "So you have no idea how you got here?"

She thought that perhaps Hermione had finally dropped off to sleep, but then the quiet voice sounded again.

"No."

There was a long silence, before she continued, "We weren't in Potions class, so it couldn't have been a potion made wrongly – unless it was one with a delayed effect."

Tony doubted that was the answer.

"But I doubt that's it," commented Hermione, bringing a smile from Tony.

For a moment, Tony thought about telling her about the incident with the laptop, and the mysterious icon with its instructions. But on second thought, hadn't thought that was a good idea. She didn't want the group being convinced she was the bad guy because she'd brought them here. But then, she didn't think that she _had_. What sort of regular muggle-contraption would be able to do that sort of thing?

_No, it has to be the work of whoever was behind that site, _Tony thought. _I'll tell them about it, but not yet._

A thought occurred to Tony: _Why would they be fully dressed in the middle of the night?_ She lay pondering that, until the answer came to her with such obvious clarity, she was slightly embarrassed for even questioning it. England was twelve hours behind New Zealand – it would have been their lunchtime when they were whisked over here. Suddenly Hermione's insomnia wasn't so surprising. She doubted the boys were sleeping either, which caused her some concern over what it was that they _were_ doing – she hoped it wasn't an exploration of her underwear drawer. They were boys, after all.

"I can see why you and Ron would have come with Harry, as you three tend to be the Three Musketeers of Hogwarts…" Tony started. She hoped Hermione understood the reference. She appeared to, as she didn't ask what it was. "…but why do you think Draco was caught up in this location-warp with you?"

"I don't know," Hermione responded, and Tony detected a definite edge to her reply this time. Perhaps it was because she was tired, but Tony was more inclined to think that it pained Hermione to repeatedly say she was clueless about anything.

Tony was beginning to feel a little bad. If it had been her who was stranded in Hermione's situation, she wouldn't want to analyse it straight away. She'd be more inclined to curl up into a ball, close her eyes tightly, and hope that when she opened them she'd see her home again. She supposed that even for someone as sure-minded and sensible as Hermione, what had just happened had to have been at least a little scary.

"We'll get you home, you know," Tony assured her, although she wasn't sure quite _how_ yet. "Somehow, we will."

In the dark, Hermione smiled past the tear running down her cheek.

~ ~

Commotion at the Gryffindor table hadn't been much different that usual, an hour beforehand. The disappearance of Ron, Harry and Hermione, had grown to become a fairly recent occurrence with their adventures around the school, so the students now didn't question their absence, but only held curious wonderment.

Curiosity was replaced with concern as Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had walked into the Great Hall, sans Draco Malfoy. The two cronies had looked disoriented and puzzled.

It wasn't as if the Gryffindors were concerned for Draco; on the contrary – most of them would consider it a wonderful gift if he was transferred away, or even just expelled. But the absence of Draco, coupled with the absence of the Gryffindor three, led them to believe that the Slytherin could be making trouble for them somewhere.

Lee Jordan stood, and strode confidently over to Crabbe and Goyle, confronting them by the Slytherin table before they sat down.

"So where's Malfoy?" he asked, although the question sounded more like an accusation.

Once Goyle had gotten over the surprise of being approached and spoken to by a Gryffindor, he formed a half-scowl on his face before muttering, "Why do you care?"

"Oh, I don't," Lee reassured them with a sardonic smile. "I just want to know what he's done to Harry."

The Slytherin two frowned.

"We don't know anything," said Crabbe, and Lee fought to keep from laughing at Crabbe's unintentional meaning. "We don't know where he is, or what he's doing."

"Not that it's any of your business anyway," Goyle added.

Some nearby Slytherins sitting at their lunch table looked over at Lee, and commented snidely, "Stick to worrying about commentating on Quidditch, Jordan. Keep your nose out of our business, or we'll make sure it ends up on a bludger."

Lee departed for the Gryffindor table, but not before casting them a resentful glare.

"They don't know where Harry is," he reported back to his housemates. "Or Ron and Hermione."

Neville looked glum, and held sympathy for them if they hadn't returned by the next Potions class. Professor Snape was particularly intimidating to Neville.

The Weasley twins looked at each other worriedly.


	6. Into Action

_Author's Note: Okay, I've tried to make this chapter longer than previous ones. I've borrowed a line from a Buffy episode (the 'brain stems' comment) and Trina co-wrote this chapter – she picked up my laptop when I got tired, and wrote some good stuff I decided to keep.  There are some terms used in here that may not be familiar to those outside of New Zealand or the UK. Those I can think of:_

**_'Milo': _**_This a chocolate hot drink_

**_'Lift': _**_Alternate term for 'elevator'_

**_'OE': _**_'Overseas Experience'. This is a common practice for Kiwis (New Zealanders), usually happening in their 20s, where they go overseas to see the world – usually touring Europe. London is typically the place where most young Kiwis base themselves when on an OE._

**Chapter 6: Into Action**

"It's been done," the low, slinky voice uttered. 

The reply sounded equally sinister.

"They've been sent?" 

"Yes, and without their means of protection, as planned. They also have been covered by a charm to not allow anyone to detect their whereabouts magically."

"So they cannot be found by any of their wizarding friends, who do not know their location. Excellent." The second leering voice continued, "Abandoned in Hastings… Our Master will be pleased. He'll be meeting them soon."

~ ~

Harry had lain on Tony's bed just staring upward for most of the night, trying to ignore the seemingly endless squabbling between his worst enemy and his best friend.

_Well, scratch that, _he'd thought. _Second worst, maybe. That would put Voldemort at number one._

Thoughts and speculations as to how they had arrived here ran through his mind at lightning speed, but no theory sounded any more plausible than another. Maybe they'd each unknowingly touched portkeys…but why had their wands stayed behind? At least, Harry assumed they'd stayed behind. All he knew, was that when he and his friends – and Malfoy – had arrived in this dark, new place, they had all been without wands.

The sudden time difference was wreaking utter confusion over him, and although the morning sun was peeking over the buildings spanning the road, Harry felt like it was evening, and soon he'd go to bed in his Gryffindor dormitory, and then wake up the next day, still at Hogwarts. A small glimmer of hope in him suggested that _this_ was a dream itself, and despite all appearances that said otherwise, he would wake up to the sight of his familiar curtains around his familiar bed.

He closed his eyes, envisioning normalcy.

He opened them.

No normalcy.

He heaved a sigh. "We don't even know where we are," he muttered.

Draco looked up from twanging the strings of Tony's guitar, with a superior expression.

"Hastings, obviously," he said haughtily.

Harry propped himself up onto his elbows and looked at the platinum-haired boy. "How would you know? Have you been here before?"

Ron lowered the Veterinary Nursing reference book he was idly flipping through, not really reading at all, and rolled his eyes at Draco's apparently knowledgeable attitude. "Tony _told_ him. Remember? She said something about how the heater 'wasn't going to heat the whole of Hastings'."

Draco looked thoroughly put out, now that the one foothold he had above the others had been taken from him. His distaste reverberated around the caravan in the form of an extra loud _twang_ from the bass string of the guitar, accompanied by a dark scowl.

"But how can this be Hastings?" Ron questioned, the absurdity of the concept suddenly occurring to him. "They don't even _sound_ like us. How can we be anywhere in England?" He turned to Draco and said bitingly, "and in case you haven't noticed, it's _night._" He looked out the window towards the rising sun. "Well, it _was_, when we got here. England's not big enough to have time zones that far apart."

Draco returned his attention to the mindless twanging of the guitar, in an effort to not look as stupid as Ron was determined to make him look.

"Maybe Tony and Trina are just visiting from somewhere?" Ron speculated.

"Not likely," Harry responded. "Considering everyone else was speaking in their accent too."

"Well there's some clever deduction," Draco said, sarcastically.

Harry's brow drew together in a frown. "If you can't say anything constructive, Malfoy," he retorted heatedly, "then shut up so the rest of us can think in peace."

Malfoy looked like he desperately wanted to say something in biting response to this, but he either thought better of it, or just didn't think it was worth the effort. He settled for looking distinctly impatient, reflecting Harry's frown back at him.

Ron heaved a large sigh as he tossed the book he'd been browsing through onto the tabletop. His boredom and despondency was short-lived, as a loud banging on the door sounded suddenly, bringing a sharp cry of fright from Ron, which in turn brought a smirk from the ever-patronising Draco.

Harry wriggled to the end of the bed, and reached an arm out to open the door. Tony stood there in her long t-shirt, which was now rumpled from her restless night.

"You decent?" she cast the question into the room, smiling as she hoisted herself up into the caravan. She didn't receive any response from the boys, so she continued, "Hey, I keep my clothes in here, so can you shift off the couch, Ron? Then I can take some inside and change."

Ron, not knowing what to say, obligingly moved off the narrow berth, and Tony lifted the top, exposing a mass of clothing. She rifled through them, draping a few items over her arm before ducking under the table to get to one of the drawers under there. She hurriedly retrieved a few items from it and stuffed them under the clothes almost shyly, before turning back around.

"Okay," she said, seeming in a hurry to get back out. "Bye."

The door had opened and closed before the boys had time to react, leaving them gazing at each other, processing what had just happened.

"Uh, bye," Harry belatedly responded to the door, which had been closed for several minutes now.

In the lounge things weren't any livelier. Hermione had managed to doze, perhaps because she just didn't have an interesting alternative. Trina, however, was still blissfully sleeping…until Tony rushed in from the bathroom across the hall, fully dressed.

Trina blearily opened one eye. "What time is it?" Her voice reached out groggily beyond the warm confines of the sleeping bag.

Tony looked over to the digital display of one of the VCRs. "Almost half past six," she responded.

Trina looked as though Tony had just uttered the biggest obscenity know to humankind. "_Six?!_ What are you doing up?! You stupid…" Whatever she was going to call Tony was lost as she buried her face into her pillow, obviously lacking the energy to follow through with the insult.

"Well, I just don't want to be sleeping in for ages so that my sisters come in and see us," Tony explained. "Because then-"

Bethany, Tony's ten-year-old sister, trotted excitedly into the lounge in anticipation of Saturday morning cartoons, and stopped short suddenly when she saw the bushy-haired stranger look up at her in uncertainly. "Who's that?" she rudely directed the question to Tony.

"-that will happen." Tony finished her statement to Trina.

Tony impatiently turned to her sister. "She's someone who's come to steal everything we own, and she will then rip our heads off and drink from our brain stems."

Bethany was distinctly unimpressed. "I was just _asking_." She saw that Tony wasn't going to offer any more information, and would certainly not let her sit down to watch irritating cartoons, so she grumpily trudged out of the lounge and back to her room.

"You need to be nicer to your sisters," Trina commented, now sufficiently awake from the commotion to form a coherent sentence.

"Yeah, and we also need world peace," Tony replied, "but you don't see that happening any time soon, either."

Trina sat up and pushed her mass of tangled hair from her face. "So what's the plan for today?"

Tony's irritated expression still loitering from the interaction with her sister drained away, to be replaced by a serious one. "I have been thinking about that," she admitted. "And I've had some thoughts- and yes, Trina, it hurt. Whatever. Anyway, I think we need to talk about it with the other guys too."

Trina looked strangely ripped off that she hadn't had the opportunity to say her characteristic mockery of Tony's brain activity. Her brow furrowed in thought and she began to crawl out of the sleeping bag.

Tony sighed quietly. She knew it would be an hour before Trina was ready to join the conscious and consistently coherent world.

She was wrong. It was _two_ hours.

Finally, with the aid of a steaming cup of milo, Trina was awake, alert, and ready to discuss…whatever it was that came after the Draco-shut-your-sarcastic-gob part. She counted it as a miracle that she was even awake at half past eight on a Saturday morning.

"So what are the bright ideas of yours?" Draco said to Tony with a sneer that plainly said he thought she wasting everybody's time.

"Well," Tony said with faux excitement to the group. "The plan so far, is that we throw Draco Smart-Arse Malfoy out into the streets to freeze and find his own way home, and the rest of us who are willing to co-operate and work together actually _get_ home."

Draco shut up.

"So after we've done that, then what?" Trina questioned, and looked at Tony with a raised eyebrow before addressing the newcomers. "Seriously, we really need to think here, because if Tony's parents find you and recognise you, then we are so _beyond_ needing help…" She let the sentence hang in the air. 

Tony nodded in agreement, as did Hermione.  Draco kept looking everywhere except at the people around the caravan, determined to not help at all.

"First things first, we need to figure out what actually happened, and how we got here." Hermione said, and showing renewed vigour since her apparent despair during the night, grabbed a pen out of the jar on the table, and then grabbed a pad of refill-paper that lay nearby. "We need to list those who have anything against any of us. First and foremost, of course, Voldemort." 

Ron shuddered a little at hearing the name. He was getting used to Harry and Hermione's frequent and casual use of it, but all the same, he found it a little worrisome.

Harry looked thoughtful as he said, "But if _he_ did this, then why? I mean, he is over _there_, and we're _here_. Wouldn't he want us to come to _him_ to wreak his havoc?" He looked puzzled, before adding, "Wherever 'here' is." 

Tony stood up suddenly, shoved her arm under a pile of junk by her bed, and pulled out a book. The large lettering spelling 'Atlas' was visible to the group, on the front. Sitting down again beside Trina, she opened the book in the middle, turned a couple of pages to find what she wanted, then turned the book towards Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco - who was trying his best to look uninterested.

"This is New Zealand," she said, as if she was talking to a bunch of five-year-olds, her tone predominantly aimed at Draco. She flicked a few pages from the world map, her audience still reeling from the sheer distance from home they found themselves, to a double-page layout of New Zealand, before continuing, "and this little red dot here," she continued, "in the North Island, is where we are. A small town called Hastings."

Harry, Hermione and Ron poured over the book with interest, while Draco glanced at the book for a moment, before pulling a face and saying snidely to Tony and Trina, "What's wrong with the shape of this place? It looks like it's had bites taken out of it in places by a sea monster or something." He filled with contempt as he continued, "If anyone came from this place, they sure shouldn't be proud of it."

At that moment, Tony wanted nothing more than to replace his pot of hair gel with an identical pot of paste.

Trina could see Tony getting more and more peeved with the platinum oil slick, and she hoped that her friend ripped off that little toad's head.

"Well, I am so sorry, Mr Malfoy," Tony responded, with a sneer that frighteningly resembled Draco's own. "I will go directly to the Head of Department of Planet Creation, and tell them it will have to be changed!"  

"I don't know if this has occurred to anyone yet," Trina started. "But they," she motioned to the four English youths, "can't stay in this caravan forever, and they can't go walking around looking like, well, looking like…like _them_."

She and Tony looked at each other. The next idea must have occurred to them at the same time, as Tony began to form a small smirk, and Trina looked equally amused.

"What?" Ron said, decidedly nervous.

Trina looked at him with a comical glint in her eye.

"Operation Make-Over."

~ ~

Minerva McGonagall was uneasy. Ron, Hermione and Harry had not turned up for Transfigurations Class, and although Ron and Harry were known to be late for classes due to their adventures around the school, they rarely missed a class entirely, and Hermione would rather chew her own arm off than skip the lesson. The deputy headmistress had asked various Gryffindors if they knew the whereabouts of their three missing housemates, but none had shed any light. Nor could Filch, and the most that Mrs Norris could shed was an amount of distasteful fur.

Upon seeing that the trio didn't turn up for dinner either, McGonagall swiftly strode to visit Dumbledore's office to inform him of their absence. She thought it unusual that an enemy had taken them while the rest of the school was blissfully unaware, but the idea was just plausible enough to be worrisome, just the same.

She reached the gargoyle statue leading to the headmaster's office, and uttered the password.

"Strawberry Chupa-Chup."

She couldn't help but shake her head at her peer's choice in passwords – infamously known to be a sweet of some kind.

The gargoyle had moved, revealing rotating stairs moving up like a lift, and she stepped onto them. Arriving at Dumbledore's door, she knocked and waited until she heard the kindly old voice invite her in.

He was sitting at his desk, his faithful phoenix, Fawkes, looking over his shoulder.

"Lemon drop?" he asked amiably, holding out a small tin of the lollies he liked so much.

McGonagall declined.

"I have something which may be of great importance, to tell you," she started. "I'm afraid that Harry, Ron and Hermione have all gone missing. No one can tell me where they are."

A sombre shade passed over Dumbledore's eyes, as they grew serious and lost their twinkle.

"Ah, yes," he responded. "And Mr Malfoy too."

McGonagall's eyes widened a little in surprise. She had indeed noticed the tranquillity of her classes with Draco Malfoy gone, but had assumed he was just displaying his characteristic irresponsibility in more direct ways.

"Why would Malfoy go with them?" she asked in her surprise. "Surely he wouldn't want to have anything to do with those three."

"He would not go willingly, we know this," Dumbledore agreed.

Dumbledore selected a lemon drop and slowly sucked on it, before speaking the words to McGonagall that made her blood run cold. "Wherever they are, they are quite defenceless. Their wands were found on the path to the Great Hall, several hours ago."

For a moment, the deputy headmistress was unable to speak, before she faltering uttered, "Do- do you like they're alright, Albus?"

"Let us hope, Minerva," he said. He cast his eyes downward for a moment as he regretfully admitted, "I have tried to locate the four, using various magical means, but..."

As his voice trailed off, Minerva McGonagall was looking increasingly alarmed. She waited for the headmaster to speak again. When he did, it was to confirm her conclusion.

"…it seems that Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger, Mr Weasley and Harry…have simply disappeared."

~ ~

"Operation _what_?" Ron shrieked.

Tony and Trina quickly shushed him, and Tony glanced nervously towards the house to see if her parents had heard anything. Her mother would still be asleep, she assumed, from her night shift at the hospital the previous night. Upon glancing at the side of the road to see her father's work vehicle gone, she deducted he'd gone to work on their recently bought property, which they then planned to lease.

"You are _not_ going anywhere near me," Draco said, his face incredulous.

"We won't change you hugely," Trina assured them. "Just enough for you to not draw too much attention. Although you look somewhat different from those guys," she motioned to the pictures of the actors portraying their corresponding character, "you still look enough like them to make you stand out, _especially_ if you stay together in a group."

"Which you _will_," Tony sharply added to Draco, who was looking more than ready to suggest they don't have to stay together at all.

She looked at Harry, and then at an image of Daniel Radcliffe in his character. "At least your eyes are different," she commented. "I still think it was stupid of them to have them blue in the movie, when the book adamantly describes them as green. There's a reason God invented coloured contact lenses. But anyway, that will work for us, now."

Trina looked at each person around the room, her glance finally landing on her friend. "What are we going to do with the rest of them?" she asked.

"We won't change them too drastically," Tony agreed. "There's no need to get stupid about it. We'll rely on the fact they don't look too much like the movie characters, to get away with it."

Looking at Hermione, she said, "You can keep all your hair, Hermione, so no need to look stricken. You could perhaps just tie it back. Or not. It might be okay." Glancing at Ron, she added, "The same goes with you, Ron. In normal clothes – normal for 'Muggles', that is – you won't be too suspicious." Her gaze continued along the group, to settle on Draco. "But…"

Draco stared at her levelly, as if daring her to finish her sentence without regretting it.

"Harry and Draco really are the most obvious of you," Trina piped up. "Harry has the round glasses that everyone knows about, and Draco has gelled platinum hair."

At the implication that they were going to change his hair, Draco narrowed his eyes and tried to look menacing.

Tony was getting readily sick of this boy's attitude. She quickly stood up and took a step toward him. "Look, Draco Malfoy," she said, as if giving an ultimatum. "Your attitude is really not helpful right now. Considering you're a long way from home, and you don't have your little stick to help you look threatening, your best chance of getting home is by working with us. Or at the very least, co-operating well enough to let us work things out ourselves." Her eyes flashed angrily. "As long as you're here, you're in no place to be so arrogant."

Draco opened his mouth to respond – probably to say something in which the words 'my father' would entail. Tony anticipated this and quickly added, "And don't you say anything about your father! He's not here right now and of no help to you. And quite frankly, I'm not seeing how a man who ties his hair together with a pretty little bow is meant to strike fear into the hearts of _anyone_."

After her monologue, the caravan fell into silence. Harry and Trina were surprised at the outburst, although pleased, and Ron looked close to having a seizure in his happiness at seeing Draco get put in his place. Hermione was looking at Draco levelly as if to emphasise every word Tony said. Draco had been looking indignant, but at the cut-down of his father, he glowered and his cheeks turned subtly pink.

In an effort to call a compromise, Trina suggested, "We won't cut his hair, or change the colour. He'll just have to stop using the gel."

"That's what I was going to suggest," Tony said through gritted teeth. "But now I'm getting more drastic and interesting ideas."

"Well, just leave them as ideas, and in your imagination you can cause him as much pain and humiliation as you like." She slowly pulled Tony back, away from Draco. Although she'd seen her friend in many moods, Tony's anger at times looked positively frightening.

As she plopped back down on the edge of the bed again, Tony glowered back at Draco. "Think you can manage that?" she asked snidely.

Draco appeared to think for a moment, before crossing his arms and retorting, "I don't have any with me anyway, of course."

Although this was true, Tony had noticed his previous inspection of the caravan from his seat, and knew that he would have seen at least _some_ of the pots of wax and gel lying around that she didn't use anymore. As it to confirm this, his eyes involuntarily darted to one of the hair gel tubes quickly, and back again. To Draco's apparent chagrin, Tony got up and gathered all the gel and wax into her arms before sitting down again.

"Just in case," she said, pointedly. "I'm taking these inside so you can't get them."

In a desperate bid to move the negative attention off him, he formed a smirk and said with a note of sarcasm, "As honoured as I am by your rapt attention with me, aren't you forgetting something?"

Quizzical looks were swapped around the caravan.

"I doubt," continued Draco, "that there will be many people out there with those round glasses _and_ a jagged scar on their forehead." He seemed pleased to see the faces of his companions now, which were laden with realisation and worry. "I should be the least of your worries – _he's_ your biggest problem."

Harry looked incredibly guilty, even though he'd of course done nothing wrong.

Tony looked at the lightning-shaped scar. "We can cover that, if we need to," she said. "Concealing Make-up would work."

Ron looked mortified for Harry, but Draco found it very amusing. His face split into a wide grin and he remarked, "Potter, in make-up! That will be a story to tell… How incredibly girly…!"

Trina rebounded the insult with, "I think a more 'girly' thing to do, would be to spend heaps of time getting their hair how they like, fussing about wardrobe and what clothes are most impressive, and aiming to be the best-looking person in the room."

This was sufficient to return the pink to Draco's cheeks, and Trina doubted that the story of Harry in make-up would now be spread.

"As for the glasses," Trina said, "…how much money do you have now, Tony?"

Tony immediately looked defeated. She and Trina had over time been saving money mercilessly for their OE, and although they both had the amount necessary for them to leave, Tony still had a few thousand more than Trina, owing to her expenses not being so high.

"Enough," Tony said resignedly. "Which would you prefer, Harry? Contact lenses, or glasses with frames not so…geeky?"

Harry blushed a little, and stumbled over his tongue trying to get words out.

"Uh, I- I guess-"

"We'll figure something out later," Tony said, to Harry's relief. She turned to Trina. "We have a few hours to work with before most shops close. After all, it's Saturday."

"They can't go out looking like that," Trina pointed out. "I'll stay, and you do some emergency shopping."

Tony nodded. "Ok." She picked up her small carry-bag, making sure her wallet was in it, and headed toward the door.

"Where's she going?" Ron asked.

Trina smiled. "Hallensteins."

"It's Good to be a Guy," Tony finished the store's tag phrase, and left.

~ ~

_Author's Note: When I send out an email to those on my update-list, to let them know a chapter's been uploaded, I may well ask in those emails about things regarding the story and how you think it should go. So if you want to be in that loop, leave me your email address for me to send update-notifications to. This time though, I'll ask the question in here:_

_Should Harry get cooler glasses, or contact lenses?_


	7. Blending In

_Authors Notes:_

_Words contained that some readers may not be familiar with:_

**_'DIY'_**_: Do It Yourself – Kiwis, particularly men, are notorious for trying to fix things up themselves rather than hire professionals_

_'**Panadiene'**: Pain relief_

_'**grand'**: Colloquial expression for 'thousand'_

_'**TradeMe'**: www.trademe.co.nz - the New Zealand equivalent of e-bay._

_'**boot'**: compartment of a car otherwise known as 'trunk'_

**Chapter 7: Blending In**

**~ ~**

The room was dank and dim, a rivulet of water running down to the floor from the edge of a window, from a puddle of rainwater on the sill outside. The only light the room offered was from the dying embers of the fire, fighting for continued life, as they periodically burned brighter before the occasional one would extinguish completely; and from the reflected moonlight splashed around the room.

The darkest wizard of all time had been sitting here in an armchair, waiting, and still sat. Still waiting. Growing increasingly impatient. Of all the people in the world to test the patience of, the infamous Lord Voldemort would be the choice most detrimental to your health. Yet this was exactly what Seth, an esteemed follower, was doing. Not on purpose, surely, as the consequences for such an act would be dire.

Voldemort snarled impatiently to himself, his tolerance levels near breaking point. Just as he let out another disgruntled breath and watched one of the last embers of the fire die out, the doors to the room crashed open, the handle of one hitting the wall to leave an imprint. A cloaked figure ran hurriedly in, tossing back his hood sending small rain droplets sprinkling to the floor. His short, messy, stringy hair peeked out from around his ears, and a patch was balding at the back of his head to leave a shiny disc of scalp.

"My Lord," he started, fearfully, and rightly so. "I apologise profusely for keeping you waiting. I meant no disrespect – none at all!" His beady black eyes were wide with apprehension and they searched his Master's face for tell-tale signs of forgiveness. Which of course, he found none. Voldemort stared levelly at Seth.

"It is only because of your previous loyalty and work on my behalf that I do not smite you where you stand, right now," the Dark Lord explained, though his voice was frighteningly menacing. He appraised his minion with a narrowed gaze, giving the impression of hidden knowledge, and that it were best not to lie, in case the liar should be caught out.

"My Lord," the man, Seth, began again, in an effort to redeem himself, "I have done what you required, my Lord. Harry Potter has been taken effortlessly from Hogwarts without immediate commotion, and transported to the place you specified, to confront him."

If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then Voldemort had no soul to speak of. His eyes showed nothing but black, cold disdain.

"Ah," he said, and Seth felt the unease at the next words before they came from the Dark Lord's mouth. "Any…complications, Seth? If there had been, you would tell me, wouldn't you?"

A lump had formed in Seth's throat, which try as he might, he could not dislodge. Voldemort knew the answer to his own question. For Seth to deny it would invite his own death. His voice quavered as he admitted, "Only slightly, my Lord, but it holds no threat to you, my Lord." He averted his gaze as he attempted to breathe levelly.

"And what is it you have done, Seth Forscythe?" the cold voice of Voldemort pierced through the chill of the room again.

"I- I- The spell was a little, uh…strong, my Lord," he fought to get the words out. "It enveloped the Potter boy and took him, but…" he swallowed thickly past the still-present lump in his throat, "…it also acquired those in the immediate vicinity of him, my Lord. Anyone within a distance of approximately ten feet." Voldemort waited, in silent prompting for his follower to elaborate. "It took two of his friends, my Lord, and…" he stopped, to gauge the reaction of his Master to this new information, "…and the son of Lucius Malfoy, my Lord."

To the Death Eater's surprise, Voldemort showed no reaction to this information. The Dark Lord only breathed in and out at a slow and level pace, his measured breaths making Seth even more afraid of the surely brewing anger underneath. The Death Eater saw a malicious glint in his Master's eyes, which led him to believe there was something else. Something bigger. The cold sweat on Seth's palms was making them clammy, and he gritted his teeth in anxiety.

"My Lord?" he ventured, in unspoken question of what else was bothering his Master.

Voldemort let the unspoken question hang in the air, before replying in measured tones, "Where did you send him, Seth Forscythe?"

"Uh," Seth started. He could not see what the problem was here – he had done exactly what Voldemort had said. "Hastings, my Lord, 'away from those who can help him', just as you dictated. And I made sure to cover him with an concealed location charm to ensure no one could find him if they did not already know his whereabouts, my Lord." This added information was uttered in a last-ditch attempt at attaining any form of approval from his Master, but then gaining an ounce of confidence, he added somewhat boastfully, "I believe their focus will be turned away from you, my Lord, for a time. A muggle thing was magically manipulated enough to make particular muggles at Potter's arrival spot suspect _they_ had summoned the students."

Voldemort acted as if he hadn't heard this last piece of Seth's monologue. Perhaps he felt it to be of little or no importance. "Hastings. Yes, you did indeed," he started, and now he began to ominously rise from his chair, his eyes flashing dangerously as his voice rose. "Hastings, _New Zealand_, you insolent fool! Why would I want him sent to the other side of the world, when _I_ am _here?_! What is that meant to accomplish?"

Seth stammered. "M- My Lord, I-" He cowered under the daunting form of his Master.

"It's not that you're protecting this boy, is it, Forscythe?" Voldemort almost whispered. "To send him to the Hastings furthest from me, and so I may not find him?"

"N- No, my Lord!" Seth replied, adamantly. Now that the foolishness of his action was confronting him, he could not see how the mistake could have been allowed to happen. After all, he knew the Dark Lord would reside in Hastings, England, for the month following, for something his Master had not divulged information on, and Seth had certainly not asked.

"You know, of course," Voldemort began, his tone now unnervingly calm, "that I am infinitely disappointed in you, Forscythe. You have sent the boy far away from me, and covered him with a Concealing Charm, which is now serving him as a form of protection…"

Seth's eyes widened in fear at the inevitable. The last thing he saw was Lord Voldemort's grim face illuminated by a green light, before he saw nothing at all.

"But I _will_ find him," the dark wizard continued, his voice leaking out into the night. "Though it will take time, I _will_ find him."

~ ~

Trina pulled back each curtain of the caravan to allow the morning light in, although she made sure that the net curtains of the windows facing the house were still closed. It certainly wouldn't do for Tony's family to see the newcomers.

"Just how long is she planning to take?" Draco asked, whiningly. 

Trina couldn't hold in a sigh of frustration at being in such close proximity of such an arrogant person for as long as she had. It was like babysitting a spoilt toddler. Trina looked up to the small analogue clock on the wall. Tony had been gone for about a couple of hours.

"She should be back soon," Trina said, exasperatedly. "She was only going to one place-"

A voice, singing jovially, was approaching the caravan, and it had reached the volume where it was noticeable enough to get Trina's attention. She strode to the end window and peered out to see if it was Tony returning with the 'emergency clothes'. With a smile, she saw her friend approaching, jauntily swinging two large plastic Hallensteins bags. Her voice became louder as she neared them.

"…38 bottles of beer on the wall, 38 bottles of beer…take one down, pass it around…37 bottles of beer on the wall…37 bottles of beer on the wall…37 bottles of beer…" Having reached the caravan door by this stage, she threw it open, her song cut off. "Hey, people," she smiled widely.

"Whoa," Trina said to her, looking wary. "You've had too much sunshine. You're much too…awake."

Tony rolled her eyes and poked her tongue out at her best friend. "A morning walk into town in the sun will do that to you."

"Thanks for the warning," Trina replied comically. "So, what did you get?"

Tony's face lit up in excitement as she reached into a Hallensteins bag and pulled out a smaller bag, this one made of paper. "Oh, I got a modem cable for my computer, so when I go away from home-"

"For _them_," Trina interrupted. "What did you get for _them_?"

"Oh." Tony now looked much less excited. She upturned the large bags onto the bed, and a mass of new clothes spilled out, in all their vibrant-coloured glory.

Harry of course, didn't seem too unnerved by this sight, being used to the concept of 'muggle' clothing, but Ron looked like he thought the pile would jump up and bite him, while Draco was eyeing it up as if it were some sort of foul toxic waste. Hermione was looking over the pile of clothes sceptically – this boys' apparel wasn't so appealing to her, although she would have gathered for herself that the boxers she'd seen among the mess weren't intended for her.

"I got stuff for you too, Hermione," assured Tony. "You don't have to wear those." She reached under the colourful mountain to pull out another smaller bag – this one labelled, 'Glassons'.

"I thought you didn't go to Glassons anymore," Trina commented as Tony pulled several articles of clothing from the newly unearthed bag.

"I don't," Tony affirmed. "Not for things for me, anyway. But I thought this stuff would look pretty good on her."

"I am _not_ wearing any of those hideous things," Draco drawled, looking back at the clothing from Hallensteins. "That orange thing looks like the sun itself just exploded all over it!"

"Fine," Tony responded. "Go naked."

Trina couldn't refrain from giving Tony a small, amused smile at this and raising an eyebrow in silent teasing. Tony responded with an innocent couldn't-help-myself expression, smiling abashedly. 

"I figured you wouldn't like bright stuff," Tony said to Draco, "but we can't have you wearing all black all the time – you look like you're off to a perpetual funeral. So I got you this instead." She threw something dark at Draco, who jumped back a little as if it was a dangerous creature, before approaching it with a look on his face suited to someone on death row.

"Who's in the house, Tony?" Trina asked suddenly. "I mean, who might possibly see these guys?"

"Well," Tony responded thoughtfully, "Mum's sleeping from her night-shift, Dad's at the other house doing DIY work on it, Rebekah will be sleeping in until some ungodly hour – we won't have to worry about her for a while, and I guess Caroline and Bethany will be in the lounge with the TV and the computer there. Those two I think are the only ones worth worrying about." She appeared to be concentrating for a moment. "Wait," she said. "I have an idea."

She grabbed her wallet and went into the house.

Only about five minutes later, the two youngest – Caroline and Bethany – were seen keenly trotting past the caravan window, down the driveway and around the corner. Tony returned with a smile.

"All clear."

"What did you tell them?" Trina asked.

"To go play in the park, and I gave them five dollars each for lollies or whatever they can get with that. They'll be gone for at least an hour. Probably more if they go down the road to visit their friends, which they probably will."

Trina looked down at the clothes pile sprawled haphazardly over the bed. "Now we just have to get you guys changed," she said.

Ron spoke up. "I'm not getting changed anywhere near Malfoy!"

"Brilliant," came the replying drawl, "then I'll be spared the trauma."

Trina sighed and heavily sat on the edge of the bed. This was turning out to be a long day…

After seemingly endless frustrations over who would change where, Tony had just thrown her hands into the air and told the English visitors to figure it out for themselves. She'd shown them where the shower was, given them towels, and left them to it, while she went off the kitchen to nurse her headache with a glass of water and some Panadiene.

She and Trina now sat at the dining room table, steaming coffees in front of them, and Tony's two budgies mindlessly chattering behind them.

"Do you have a plan?" Tony asked hopefully.

Trina sighed and looked defeated as she laid her head down onto her arms. "Of course not. This isn't the kind of thing you just have a plan for. I mean, think about it; Harry Potter – _the_ Harry Potter – is actually _real_. And not only that, he turns up at your door. Now, tell me that doesn't sound like some little girl's wish come true?"

"Yeah, alright," Tony admitted. "Not the kind of thing you'd have planned for." Reflecting on Trina's statement, she added, "It does sound really…fake and childish-dream, doesn't it?"

"Except, in the childish dream," Trina commented, stirring her coffee aimlessly, "Harry would fall in love with whoever it was he turned up to see, life would be rosy, and they would all live happily ever after."

Tony laughed into her coffee, sending a little bit splashing over the side of the cup and onto the table. "Yeah," she laughed, "there's that. But then, if they ever actually got him turning up at their door, they would see that there would be too much to figure out and too much frustration and confusion for there to be _time_ for all that love stuff!"

Trina looked at her friend amusedly over her cup. "You like Draco, though. You know how you were before they turned up! You didn't sound so mature and above all that _then_."

"I like Draco? Now that," Tony corrected quickly, "is where you're very wrong.  I'm _attracted_ to the Draco of the movies, and I think the voice of Draco in the audio books is insanely funny, but that does not mean I have to even remotely _like_ the little sod." 

"I can't argue with that," Trina responded. "I believe you. You always tended to go for the bad guys anyway, and as I recall, out of all your past boyfriends there was only _one_ that you actually _liked._"

Tony frowned. " 'All your past boyfriends'…honestly, you make it sound like I had an army of them! There was only three! Anyway, remind me, again, how this has _anything_ to do with solving our problem here? If we're going to talk about something so pointless, I might bring up your 'boyfriend' Bon-Bon…"

"Ok, ok," Trina held up a hand. "I won't hassle you about that then. I was just having a bit of fun, though."

The air grew silent, save for the sound of the running water of the shower down the hall, and the budgies making the occasional 'peep'. All humour had died, and the two Kiwi girls grew serious. Which, even they had to acknowledge, didn't happen often at all.

"We're screwed, aren't we?" Trina asked, rhetorically.

After a long pause, Tony answered, "Well, we have two options. We _could _just take no responsibility for it, tell them sorry and wish them luck as we herd them out the door…"

Trina looked distinctly uncomfortable with that idea. "That would be cold," she said. "I know we didn't ask for this, but we couldn't just leave them to fend for themselves out there – halfway around the globe from home, and with no wands."

Tony looked at the small amount of coffee in her cup, and drained it. Holding the still-warm empty cup in her hands, she said softly, "well, if not that…then that only leaves us with Option Two."

Although Trina knew her friend couldn't have turned Hermione and the boys out onto the streets either, the thought 'Option Two' obviously wasn't cheering her up any – whatever that option _was_.

"What's Option Two?"

Tony looked up; surprised that Trina hadn't come to the conclusion herself. But then, that Option was such a big decision Tony would never have believed it herself, unless it was uttered plain and clear.

"We take them back," Tony said resignedly. "Ourselves."

Trina's eyes widened in shock.

"Not right to the front door of Hogwarts, obviously," Tony clarified. "I mean, we can't do magic – I don't know if we'd even be able to get in. But we could take them somewhere in England, where they can find their own way to the school from."

"But- but…" Trina started, unable to finish her sentence, still trying to get her head around the idea.

"Look," Tony said, "I'm betting that the others over there don't even know where these guys are. If they did, then something would have happened by now. Someone would have apparated here perhaps, or Harry would have at least been contacted."

Trina, although still stunned by the enormity of the idea, was starting to see the sense of it.

"They have two weeks to be contacted by Dumbledore, or someone else who could help."

Trina looked confused. "Two weeks?"

Tony didn't look happy as she said, "I'll have to hand in my notice, at the vet clinic. I'll need to work two weeks from that."

Trina gasped, unable to form the question of why all this had to happen.

"Really," Tony said, "we have the money for this. We'd even _planned_ this – we just now have 4 extra people that weren't in the original plan." She flopped back against the back of her chair. "You already have your passport. I'll get mine sorted in the fastest possible time, and hand in my notice at work."

Trina, although she'd known that she would sometime leave New Zealand on this trip, looked a little saddened by the thought now.

"The OE was always going to happen," Tony said with finality. "It's just come a little bit earlier than we anticipated."

Trina looked at her incredulously.

"By 'a little bit'," Tony amended, "I mean 'a lot bit', obviously."

Any response Trina may have given was cut short by the arrival of a surly looking figure that slumped down in a chair at the end of the table.

"Well, aren't we a bundle of sunshine…" Trina said.

However humiliating Draco may have found his current predicament, he redeemed himself by saying, "Weasley obviously couldn't decide which shirt he looked most ridiculous in, so he decided on wearing them both."

If Draco could be described as anything, in his new clothes, it could by no counts be 'ridiculous'. His shower had washed away all traces of the paste-like gel from his hair, so it now hung in a damp white curtain. Despite all her protests against having Draco wear black, Tony had allowed him to wear stylish black pants, accompanying a dark blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Even Trina had to admit that he really didn't look bad now, at all. Not that she'd admit this out loud though, of course. He smelled alluringly of Lynx, which led her to believe he'd discovered the can of it under the bathroom sink, where fortunately, there was no hair gel.

"Ron could wear a gold-lined robe with a gem-studded collar," Tony said, "and you'd still say he looked ridiculous."

Draco gave the first hint of a smile they had seen since he arrived. Albeit a rather derisive smile, it was still a start. "Weasley? Wearing a robe like that? I don't know what he could possibly have traded for that – even his soul's not worth that much."

"Maybe he traded yours." Tony replied. "For about half a sequin."

Draco looked dissatisfied – it appeared now that Tony wasn't going to get angry at his comments, but rather try to match them.

The sound of the lounge door opening made the two girls look up, and they saw Hermione walk in to meet them. She of course didn't look as awkward as the Slytherin visitor, as she would have been familiar with muggle clothing – coming from a muggle family herself. She also had black pants, with a small diamante design studded at the hip. A complimenting diamante hairclip, which Tony had snatched up as an afterthought, held some of her chestnut waves back off her face, before they spilled over her shoulder and her lilac bolero. The ensemble was completed by the smile she gave as she approached.

"Much better than that stodgy uniform," Trina appraised.

Draco looked grumpy. "_She_ gets to wear a black top," he grumbled, referring to the close-fitting top under the lilac jacket.

Tony looked at him amusedly. "That's because _she_ doesn't look like she's going to keel over and die from anaemia."

Trina drained her coffee cup and stood from the table. "Are the others finished?" she said, heading toward the kitchen sink to wash out her cup.

"I'd think so," Hermione ventured. "We can go knock on the caravan door and ask."

"They'll be done," Tony concluded. "If _Draco's_ finished with his seemingly incessant preening…" she let the comment hang unfinished in the air, her point already taken.

Upon taking up Hermione's suggestion and knocking on the caravan door where they were promptly let in, they saw that the boys had indeed finished changing, and appeared to have been talking about their hapless situation while casually sitting in the warm environment.

Draco couldn't repress a smirk at Ron's attire. Or rather, didn't _want_ to repress the smirk. Ron didn't look ridiculous as Draco had concluded, but was still apparently uncomfortable in the strange get-up. He was wearing rather large blue skater jeans, which he had been protesting over the size of, until Harry had informed him it was fashionable. If New Zealand fashion was running along similar lines as the rest of the world, anyway, which it appeared to. The orange t-shirt that Draco had found so offensive didn't look so glaring at all, now that it was on someone that actually suited it. Only a strip down the middle could be seen of it though, as a second layer – a short-sleeved navy shirt – largely covered it. He looked the epitome of Casual, and really not ridiculous at all.

Hermione, Draco, and the two hosts of the group found seats around the caravan, Tony relishing in the concentrated heat of the morning that the caravan gave. Limited insulation meant that the room was bitterly cold in the dead of winter, but when the sun came up it was the first spot to get warm.

"_He_ still looks like, well, _him,_" Draco was the first to point out, motioning at Harry.

With the lightning scar and his characteristic glasses, there was no mistaking his conspicuousness. However it now wasn't so apparent he was different from any other non-magical boy – his robes had been discarded in favour of beige cargo pants and a dark grey t-shirt, topped with a green camouflage jacket that intensified the colour of his eyes.

With this silent reminder, Tony said, "We have to get those glasses sorted. They have to go."

Harry looked uncertain about this, so Tony assured him that he would be allowed to keep them of course, but that he would need a temporary replacement.

She crossed the room to pick up a small tube of concealer, and squirted some out onto the tip of her finger, while commenting to Harry, "You're pretty tanned, so this should blend right in."

Draco looked highly amused, but didn't voice his opinion again, still influenced by the humiliating shadow of Trina's cut down of his impeccable dress habits.

Harry looked rather intimidated. "Are you sure that's going to work?" he asked. As much as he relished the idea of being able to walk down the street without drawing attention to his scar, the idea of wearing make-up was mortifying – a feeling that would only be defeated if the method actually worked.

"This dinky tube," Tony said, brandishing the tube in demonstration, "cost $30! If it _didn't_ work, I'd personally go to the chief manufacturer and smear it over his eyeballs until they exploded in a rain of tanned jelly!"

The others in the caravan looked rather shocked – Draco with a trace of reverent surprise – with the exception of Trina, who let out a boisterous laugh.

"She's just kidding, people," she said, by way of reassurance. But all the same, Harry still tensed almost imperceptibly as Tony approached him and started blending the concealer into his skin, over the scar – relaxing only when Tony drew back with a satisfied and very un-lethal looking smile and said, "There. Finished."

The result, Harry had to admit, was very good – the scar had seemingly vanished.

"Ok, so you all look different, but that is just the beginning," Trina said, bringing them all back down to Earth. "First things first - we need to get ourselves sorted for tonight. As much as staying here in this caravan is good, eventually Tony's parents are going to want to see her face, and they might get a shock to find four new ones attached!"

Tony nodded and grabbed Trina's arm. "What about if Hermione stays at your place for a night or so – it'll be easy to put the boys up at that motel down the road – and you can tell your Parental Units that we're going on a road trip." 

Trina shook her head. "Slight problem: we are going to _England_!" She drew it out so it sounded as if it were the most basic of ideas and that Tony was silly for even suggesting it. "Hermione staying with us is one thing, but me leaving to go to England at a moment's notice is a whole different novel altogether!"

"Then you have a couple of weeks to get them used to the idea," Tony said grimly. "Besides, I wasn't suggesting that you lie. We _will_ be going on a road trip – up to Auckland. We'll take a plane to England at the International Airport up there."

"How far is it to Auckland?" Hermione inquired, out of interest.

Trina turned to her. "About six hours drive."

"That's if you don't stop," Tony added. "Which won't be us. If we," she motioned to herself and her best friend, "are going to leave the country early, we're going to soak in as much memory as we can. Well, from the good places anyway. But from between here and Auckland, we'd only be covering about half the North Island. Still, it'll be good for you to see it too. Too many foreigners think New Zealand is a desolate primitive tribal land with sheep wandering the streets, or something equally disgusting." She shuddered at the mental image.

"How will we get there?" Ron asked. "By train?"

Tony looked at him as if he'd just spoken a foreign language, before turning to Trina to ask, "Does New Zealand still _have_ passenger trains?"

"I honestly don't know," Trina replied. "Perhaps just to certain places – like big cities. All the trains I see now are freight. Passenger trains may just be a thing of the past. It's all on intercity buses now."

"Yeah," Tony said, grimacing at the memory of her last time on an intercity bus. "Some of them are double-decker monsters that sway like a Latino dancer in heat."

Ron looked quite alarmed at this, and catching his facial expression, Tony chuckled and quickly assured him that they wouldn't be taking any buses.

"We'll be walking," Trina said. "It'll be good exercise and a good opportunity to see the scenery."

The room was suddenly covered in a blanket of shocked silence except for a slight gagging sound from Ron as he was trying to speak. At least, that's what Trina presumed he was trying to do. Perhaps he was just trying to breathe. Draco looked as incredulous as they had seen him yet.

Tony laughed as she amended, "We'll be taking my car – we'll all fit if we keep our stuff in the boot." She cast a look at the highly amused Trina and said with a smile, "You great dolt."

Trina smiled back before her brow furrowed in thought. She lifted the net curtain of the long window at the end of the caravan to look out at Tony's car. It wasn't overly impressive – a second-hand Nissan Bluebird she'd bought for about 5 grand. Fitting to its name, the car was a deep dark blue, almost bordering on black.

"Tony," Trina said, voicing the thought that furrowed her brow, "what are we going to do with your car? I mean, we can't exactly take it on the plane, and it's a Kiwi car – the wheel's on the wrong side for much of Europe."

"Which is why we're not taking my car to Europe," Tony said, matter-of-factly. "I'm going to use a spot of common sense for once in my life and sell it, up in Auckland. As per the original plan."

"The original plan," Trina repeated. "So, you're selling your computer too?"

"And pretty much everything else I have," Tony affirmed. "Which is kinda bad timing, considering I only just bought a modem cable for it today."

Harry looked up from mindlessly fingering the zipper on his new camouflage jacket, and said, "It sounds like you have a lot to do in just two weeks." He again looked guilty, as if all of this was his fault. "Are you able to do all this?"

Trina looked thoughtful. "Probably," she decided. "We're just like this – impulsive. Of course, that'll probably turn around and bite us in the butt one day. Probably when we run out of money overseas and have to be deported!"

Tony grinned at the idea. "Hey, at least it's a free ride home!" She grew serious again. "I'll sell my computer on TradeMe. But because we _are_ rather pushed for time, instead of selling off my computer gear separately, I could possibly incorporate all my accumulated software and hardware in one collective package, with the laptop bag. That would also save me the time of having to erase and format the drives. I'd take my personal stuff off first though, of course."

"How much do you think you'll get from all that?" Trina asked. "We'll need all we can get, now that we have four extra people."

Tony mused this over in her mind. "All the gear sold in one package, second hand of course, might pull in about…between three and four thousand? After all, I've collected enough periphery equipment to decorate a Christmas tree with, and all my software is either the latest, or close to it."

"And the car?"

"May pull in another three," Tony guessed. "But, we can't afford to be pedantic about it – we'll have to take what we can get. Dad will want my network cable though, I'd think. Not many other people would use it anyway."

The nonplussed Hogwarts students had been sitting quietly, watching this financial discussion going on between the two New Zealanders, still not quite believing it was all happening.

Trina spotted their lost expressions and comically said, "Just do what I do when I don't know what's going on – nod, smile, and agree."

This drew a small laugh from Harry.

Tony looked at him momentarily before asking Trina, "Do you think the Optometrists would be open still?"

Trina looked at the clock, which informed her it was nearing half past eleven.

"We have just over an hour and a half," she replied, getting up. "C'mon everyone, out to the car."

Everyone started to shift as Tony declared she was going in the house to tell Rebekah – who was hopefully now awake – that she was going out, and to expect her younger sisters home soon.

Mere minutes later, the four Hogwarts students were seated in the back seat of Tony's car – at much humiliation to Draco – with Trina in the front passenger seat as Tony sat down to drive, slamming the door with an unnecessarily hard and resounding _bang_.

As Tony started the engine and pulled out onto the road, the radio began to spill its sound into the car, the voices of the song smothering the ungracious hum of the engine as they sang, _"…never took this road before…destination unknown…"_

~ ~

_Author's Notes: Thanks to those who have reviewed thus far – each review is enormously appreciated. Even flames, if constructed tactfully, are taken into account – although blatantly stupid flames will just be used to light my gas oven._


	8. Continuing of the Same

_Author's Notes: First, in response to reviews: I hadn't intended there to be any Tony/Draco [that looks slashy, doesn't it…] or Trina/Ron – after all, they're going to split once they reach England. And can you see Draco in any form of romantic relationship with a Muggle? I think anything that Tony/Draco have wouldn't go beyond pointless flirting – that would keep them both in character :)_

_For those who weren't familiar with the term 'optometrist', I'm assuming it would be the same as what others call an 'optician'._

_No, I don't know anyone with the name Forscythe – but I thought it sounded good for the part._

_The song mentioned at the end of the previous chapter was 'Destination Unknown' by Marietta – I got it from my TopGun Soundtrack._

_And finally…sorry for the delay in updating, and for the relatively uneventful chapter. I'm under huge pressure from my studies at the moment – but having said that, I can assure you that a generous number of reviews will do well to motivate me to put time aside to write more here, I'm sure._

**Chapter 8: Continuing of the Same**

"Ginny! Bludger!" Fred's call spliced the air in warning, as his sister manoeuvred her broomstick to narrowly miss the offending missile.

Ginny frowned and mentally scolded herself for not paying attention. Her mind had been too preoccupied with the absence of Harry, Hermione and her brother to be keeping a close watch for an elusive silver-winged golden ball. But _someone_ had to step in for Harry in the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Lee Jordan had said that despite the incident of the kidnapping –or whatever it was – "life goes on". 'Life' obviously included Quidditch. Ginny wished Lee hadn't said it quite so much as if her brother and her friends were already dead. She knew that with Harry's position of Seeker on the team up for grabs, Ron would have been almost sick with excitement at the possibility of getting it. Only of course, he was gone too.

Swallowing grimly as she was reminded of this again, Ginny soared higher over the pitch. Perhaps she'd have a better chance at keeping her mind on the game if she kept moving in an active search for the snitch.

Then, with an almost imperceptible flash, she saw it. The sun had glinted off the shiny surface of the ball so quickly Ginny almost wasn't sure if had really been there, but as she dived quickly down in chase the snitch came back into view, it's fine silver wings moving so fast the ball appeared to be levitating. Ginny fixed her eyes on it determinedly, so as not to lose track of it. The ball was skipping in all directions, apt to change without warning. Ginny knew Harry would have easily captured the snitch with his reflexes as sharp as they were, but after all, she wasn't Harry.

The challenge of reaching the snitch and catching it became a secondary concern as the new Slytherin Seeker flew suddenly alongside her, brutally nudging her aside. Of course, with Draco also mysteriously gone, Slytherin also had to have a new Seeker.

Although the disappearance of Draco was appreciated by the Gryffindors, the Slytherin team addition of James Forscythe didn't make much of an improvement. He was in the same year as Ginny, and sported the attitude of Draco Malfoy minus the polished air. Ginny had heard that his uncle had recently died, although just _how_ he had, eluded common gossip. Rumour had it that his uncle had been a Death Eater, but James had smugly refused to indulge information about this. Regardless of the size of the tragedy, it was near impossible to feel any form of sympathy for James – if anything, the incident had made him even more unpleasant. Draco would be proud.

James sneered at Ginny through his unkempt brown hair that had a touch of Snape-greasiness, before pulling ahead slightly. Ginny urged her broomstick onwards as fast as she could, gaining a few inches so she was once again in league with James. If Ginny didn't know better, she'd have thought the snitch was maintaining its distance just to tease her. Closer…closer…

She reached out her arm and teetered a little on her broom. Closer…almost there…

With a feeling of excited elation, she saw the space between her fingertips and the golden ball decrease, until she felt the cool surface skimming the very edge of her fingertips. The next moment, the feeling of a cool smooth surface was replaced by a feeling like that of a blade crossing her hand. James had reached forward also, and with a lunge, had managed to grasp the snitch in his grimy hands, as he'd raked his nails hurriedly across the back of Ginny's hand. The tiny ball fluttered its wings as if it could tell just how atrocious the creature attached to the hand that held it was.

Ginny slowed her broom before dropping to the ground disappointedly, fighting back stinging tears as the resounding groans of the Gryffindors echoed around her head at their loss – so very nearly avoided.

She wanted nothing more than bury herself in her pillows and try to forget the humiliation. As it was, she had to hold her head up as the rest of the Gryffindor team walked over to her.

"It's ok, Ginny," George reassured her. "We know you did your best, and you were really close."

Despite his words, Ginny could see the disappointment etched into his eyes.

"Gryffindor really shouldn't be surprised that they lost," a nasty hoity voice rose to meet Ginny's ears and she glanced over to see a group of Slytherin girls loudly talking amongst each other, with the obvious intention of having the Gryffindor team hear them. "Their team has too many Weasleys to be any good."

"Don't listen to them," Lavender Brown whispered to Ginny. "They're just trying to aggravate you."

"Well it's working," muttered Ginny in reply.

"Ok, but don't let them know that."

By the time Ginny had reached the Gryffindor Common Room, her concern had shifted from the comments of the Slytherin girls, once again to the disappearance of her friends. She sunk into an armchair near the unlit fire, despondent.

"What are we going to tell Mum?"

Ginny started a little at the voice, and looked up to see her two brothers – Fred and George – looking down at her with worried expressions. George raised his eyebrows in silent prompting for her to answer his question.

"I don't know," Ginny said wearily. Surely George couldn't have expected any other answer. "We can go to talk to Dumbledore about this."

Fred shook his head. "We did that already," he said, motioning to his twin. "He wasn't very helpful. He basically told us that Harry, Ron and Hermione were still alive." His face grew almost disappointed as he added, "Well, and Malfoy too. But we're not worried about _him_."

"Is he doing anything about getting them back?" Ginny asked hopefully.

"Well, that's the problem," George said. "He doesn't know where they are. They must be covered by a Concealing Charm."

Ginny's eyes widened. "So you mean he's not doing _anything_?"

"Well," George said nervously, "he's worried that You-Know-Who has something to do with it, and so since he can't track Ron or the others, he's watching You-Know-Who closely to see if he makes a move."

Ginny's eyes had widened perceptibly at the concept of Lord Voldemort having taken her brother, and although she'd already assumed this, hearing the word spoken aloud just made it that much worse.

"He knows that Mum will go ballistic if she found out," Fred added, "so he told us not to say anything to her. At least, not until we know what's happening, or until they're all safe."

"He must know that she's going to find out anyway," Ginny said despairingly. "I mean, Dad will hear about it at the ministry – especially if You-Know-Who is involved – and of course Mum will hear about it then."

The twins' sombre faces admitted that this had occurred to them too.

"We'll just have to hope that she doesn't know for as long as possible," Fred said.

Ginny sighed. "Which surely can't be very long."

~~

"This is it?" Harry asked, as Tony pulled her car over to the curb outside a heavily glazed building sporting pictures of people with perfect teeth and flawless skin proudly wearing fashionable glasses and looking good in them. The words 'Eye Deal' were written in silver script above the window.

"Yeah, this is it," Tony said, undoing her seatbelt. The six people scrambled out of the car to stand in the sunlit street outside the optometrist's.

"Getting what you need in there may take a while," Trina said. "So how about I take these three for a walk around here, and you can go with Harry, since you're the one with the wallet."

Tony could apparently not see Draco being co-operative in the store any more than Trina could, as she agreed and led Harry inside.

Harry swallowed past the lump of nervousness in his throat. Everything was just so overwhelming. It wasn't as if he'd never seen this sort of Muggle environment before – after all, he lived with Muggles – but knowing he was halfway around the world from home in this strange place seemed to put a heavy distasteful lump in his stomach.

He gazed around him at the various glasses on display, and watched as Tony strode confidently up to the desk at the back to speak to the person behind it. She was a woman in her late thirties, Harry guessed, with impeccable hair and make-up. She obviously took great care in her appearance. He didn't hear what the words being spoken were, but he saw the woman at the desk raise her eyes to him, smiling almost amusedly. Harry nervously reached up to pat down his hair over his forehead, just in case the woman had seen the scar through the concealer. The woman turned back to Tony to say a few a words before she came out from behind the desk and approached Harry with a reassuring smile.

"Good morning," she said, reaching her hand out for Harry to shake it. "I'm Hannah. So, you're wanting new glasses, then?"

Harry took a moment to orientate himself and find his voice. "Uh, yeah…"

"I supposed you'd often get hassled for having such a Harry Potter look, hmm?" Hannah said teasingly as she beckoned Harry and Tony through a door near the back of the store.

Harry flushed a little, and he saw Tony trying to cover an amused grin with her hand.

Once they were through the door, Harry found himself in a small room with a table and a few comfortable chairs.

"Wait here and I'll get a box with some frames for you to try," she said. "And we can try some contact lenses too, so you can decide your preference."

Her words hung in the air behind her as she breezed out, leaving Harry and Tony in the quiet cream-coloured room. They sat down at the table and waited in silence – the only sound coming from the lightly ticking clock on the wall.

Harry didn't know exactly how much glasses and contact lenses costed, but he was sure it was a sizeable amount. He felt bad for not being able to help out – after all, all his money was in wizard gold, and that wouldn't get them far in the Muggle world.

A few minutes passed before Harry broke the silence. "Isn't this going to cost a lot?"

Tony appeared not to have heard him, as she kept staring unfocusedly at the wall in front of her. Harry though perhaps he shouldn't have asked the question, and just as he resolved to keep quiet, Tony replied, "It will be a sizeable amount, yeah…" She must have noticed Harry's guilt-stricken expression, as she added in a reassurance, "But we'll be bypassing America. I mean, when Trina and I had planned our overseas trip, we were going to stop in the States to see some friends – and of course, America is a fair distance out of the way. So it we're no longer going there – at least, not with you four, on the way to Europe – so that's extra money saved. Extra money that would more than cover your glasses, so we're not going to run out of money on the trip…" Her brow furrowed in thought. "…Unless one of you people eat a lot – now that Trina and I are covering for four more…"

The start of a smile tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth, but he was saved the trouble of coming up with a suitable response by the hurried entrance of Hannah, brightly smiling and brandishing a blue box, which she set in front of them and opened to display a selection of glasses frames.

She pulled the remaining chair from the table and sat, still talking happily to Harry, and she showed him a catalogue of various contact lenses.

Harry glanced upward from the array to see Tony glance momentary at her watch, before settling back in her chair to wait.

~~

Draco had been only too keen to get away from Harry and the optometrist's, Ron noticed, unimpressed. He supposed that Draco would consider waiting for Harry to be a serious breach of justice. As the group of four had walked through the paved area in the centre of town, stopping occasionally at stores Trina wanted to go into, or at small caravans selling hotdogs or ice-cream, Draco's nasty demeanour had slipped a bit. He was still relatively negative of course – after all, Draco would always be Draco. And Ron would always hate him for it. Perhaps it was because Draco had finally realised that he wouldn't be getting home any faster by playing the sultry bully, or perhaps it was the grandeur of the adventure – either way, Ron had been shocked to see what he was sure had been the start of a smile on the blond boy's face.

"Oh, we have to go in here," Ron was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of Trina's excited voice, as she strode into a shop that was painted an overwhelming blue, with large golden coins pictured on it. Ron raised an eyebrow at the place, disbelievingly. He didn't think even Diagon Alley had shops that looked as tacky as this.

'The $2-Shop', a bright gold-coin was painted to be saying. Ron following the others inside, and noted that Draco was looking around with some disgust. Ron wasn't too surprised at this. Although he wasn't familiar with Muggle money and their values, he got the impression that $2 wasn't very much – and it appeared that everything in this store costed exactly that. The shop didn't appear to specialise in anything in particular, but rather was a collage of everything. As he glanced half-heartedly over the large room, he saw wrapping paper, letter-writing equipment, candles, toys, things that looked like they worked with electricity – batteries and the like – that he knew his father would love, and countless other items on sale.

"Oh, look!" Trina exclaimed, and Hermione and the two boys looked up at her. She was wearing a strange headpiece – a band that had two alien antennae sticking out of it. "Tony's been wanting to get one of these for ages," she continued.

Ron's incredulousness at seeing the strange headband decreased as he heard this information. He could easily imaging Tony wanting something like that – she seemed to have the same level of seriousness as his own brothers, Fred and George.

This reminder of his family back home brought a cold feeling to his stomach. They wouldn't be trapped here forever, would they? Surely not. Dumbledore wouldn't allow it, and after all, Trina and Tony had offered to take them back to England. Hermione must have sensed his sudden discomfort, as she looked to him with an expression of empathy.

Draco was inspecting a large and all-too-real-looking plastic spider – much to the terror of Ron – when a sudden beeping made them all look up. The noise seemed to be coming from Trina's carry-bag. Trina rummaged around in her bag before retrieving the source of the noise – a small black object that she lifted to her ear and proceeded to talk into.

Ron disinterestedly looked through the various items in front of him as he listened to the snippets of conversation on Trina's end. "Hello?…Oh, okay…so did you tell them you needed it right away?…ok, we'll find something…ok, bye."

Trina put the small black object – her cellphone, according to Hermione – back in her bag before addressing the others. "Getting the glasses ready is going to take a while, so Tony gave them the hurry-up – but we'll need to find something to do for the next couple of hours."

"Couple of _hours_?" Draco repeated, incredulous.

Trina tilted her head slightly in thought, before asking, "Do wizards have movies?"

~~

Hermione had of course been to movie theatres before, so the experience wasn't new to her. All the same, she found it enjoyable – that is, the parts when Draco wasn't making derogatory comments to Ron about his rate of popcorn consumption, which even Hermione had to admit, was quite high.

"What I don't get," Draco said as they were walking out of the theatre, in a tone as if reporting someone's stupid mistake, "is why that girl with the weird mark on her arm-"

"Tattoo," Trina interrupted in correction.

Draco scowled at her before continuing, "-didn't just fight that guy who got the powerful necklace in the end. I mean, she'd gone through heaps to get it - it was stupid that she gave it over to him."

Trina hesitated for a moment before looking over to him and replying, "People are what they are – sometimes against their wishes.  I'm sure the guy didn't _want _to have to rely on a gem on a chain to live, but that's the hand he was dealt. As for the girl, well, sometimes it takes a more courageous person to accept that they're less important than someone else for something."

She looked at Draco with particular interest at the last sentence, but Draco was determined to look unaffected - although his animosity with Harry Potter was undoubtedly going through his mind.

"Being courageous didn't stop her from dying though, did it?" Ron stated. "She needed the necklace too."

"That's beside the point!" Hermione censured. She may have continued the thread of conversation, had Trina not called out and raised her arm in a wave to two people a block away, walking towards them.

Hermione gasped as they drew to meet the two – who were Tony and Harry, having emerged from the optometrist's.

Tony was looking fidgety, as she was exclaiming over the long uncomfortable wait she went through in there. Harry looked, well…different. He looked at them almost shyly, trying to gauge their reactions. His wind-swept black hair wasn't concealing his forehead, which still had no appearance of a scar, and his deep green eyes looked at them, waiting. Hermione hadn't noticed just how vivid his eye colour was until there weren't any glasses in the way.

"You got contacts!" she said excitedly.

"Well…" Tony began, reaching a hand up to nervously smooth one of her eyebrows.

Trina recognised the gesture and said exasperatedly, "Oh, you didn't!"

Tony shrugged sheepishly.

"Did what?" Ron said, confused.

"She shopped Tony-style," Trina said. Then elaborated, "When she can't decide between two things, she gets them both! You got him glasses as well?"

"Well, we're not going to the States now!" Tony said, trying to justify herself. Seeing this explanation wasn't adequate enough for Trina to accept, she added, "Besides, he might get irritated by wearing contact lenses for too long…or something."

This reasoning sounded more plausible to Trina. "Where are the glasses?" she asked.

"In my bag," Tony responded. "Along with his old ones."

Ron was still looking at Harry as though trying to judge if it was really him, but Hermione reassured Harry by telling him they looked really good.

Harry smiled, which made his eyes seem even more dazzling.

"They look like eyes," Draco said, unable to see what all the fuss was about. His expression changed to one of mild shock and disbelief as he felt a sharp smack to his head.

"Sorry," Tony said, not sounding sorry at all. "Muscle spasm. No control over those things, you know." She turned to Harry, who was making no effort to conceal his glee over seeing Draco's expression, and said, "Harry, here are my keys – you four get in the car. I just want to talk to Trina for a few minutes."

Harry started off toward the car with Ron and Hermione, Draco grudgingly falling in behind them.

~~

"_Now_ where are we going?" Draco said, impatiently.

Tony looked at him in the rear-vision mirror and said brightly, "We've shopped for Harry – now we're off to get you the finest hair products money can buy to make you more comfortable…" Draco brightened considerably at this. "…Right after we make world peace and harmony between Voldemort and the Muggle Queen."

For a moment Tony was glad she was looking at Draco through a mirror – the glare he gave her rivalled that of a basilisk on a bad day.

"Where are we really going?" Hermione asked.

"You'll be staying with us," Trina said. "One of the privileges of being a girl." She chose to ignore Draco's mock-gag response. "But the guys can't stay with us. They're not so conspicuous now, but there's still the issue of room."

Before the back-seat passengers could question her further, Tony had pulled up outside of a building marked, _'Parkvale Motel'._ Draco didn't appear to be very impressed with this.

"You're putting us in a motel?"

Tony unbelted herself and turned in her seat to look at him levelly. "Well, _they're_ going in the motel…" she motioned toward Harry and Ron, "…but I know for a fact the gutters have a heavily discounted rate. Now here's the part where I give you the luxury of choice. What'll it be?"

As Draco sulked back in his seat, Trina laughed quietly and said to no one in particular, "Sometimes he shouldn't say words."

~~

In the dark of night in the dilapidated building in a quiet nook of England, Lord Voldemort smiled – a frightening grimace that faded into the night and dispersed as quickly as it had appeared.

Voldemort knew what he would do.

~~

_A/N: Reminder that if you wish to be on the email update list for this story - to be alerted at the time of an update and to be included in any plot questions and speculations - leave your email address either in a review, or you can email me directly to ask to be added._


	9. Tying up Loose Ends

_Author's Notes: Yes, the money does admittedly seem to be coincidentally well-placed – but regardless of availability, it can't be expected to last long – especially with Tony flinging it around as readily as she is! If she doesn't strictly reign in her spending it'll run out… :) Thanks all for your opinions – all reviews are much appreciated. Sorry I hadn't updated in a while – I've been sick and unable to function in anything, reasonably._

**Chapter 9: Tying Up Loose Ends**

Harry looked around the motel room, the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the net curtains. A small dining table squatted to his left with three wooden chairs perched around its perimeter. Next to a small couch, a television sat in the corner looking out into the room, a few magazines lying haphazardly in the cabinet underneath. One single bed lay tucked away under the window, dust particles visibly dancing in the sunbeams above the covers.

Harry turned to see Draco step over the threshold of the entrance and walk through the small kitchen into the main room, glancing around disdainfully.

"Where does this go to?" Ron said, and Harry saw him curiously turning the handle of a door in a side wall. 

"The other half of this unit," Tony's voice followed him through, and Harry followed his friend into the neighbouring room. He was met with the sight of three more beds, each with the same apricot covers as the first. They were separated by small bedside drawer units, and a large wardrobe lined one of the walls.

"The bathroom is through that door," Tony said, motioning to the door standing by the wardrobe. "Towels and things will already be in there. It's quite a sizeable unit really, for the price," she said, gazing around satisfied. "It probably helps that we're during a school term over here, at the moment. That would explain the many vacancies."

Ron sat on the bed nearest him, looking dejected and tired. "Do they even know we're gone?" he said. No one had to ask what he was referring to.

Harry sat next to his friend in silent support. "They should by now," he said. "I'm sure there's a reason no one has found us. There _must_ be…" his voice tapered off into silence.

Draco was in no apparent mood to be sentimental and supportive, but his incessant movement and shifting his feet showed his discomfort in their predicament, and his wish to be home.

For a minute, the room was blanketed in sombre silence, the only sound coming from the occasional passing car on the road, barely audible.

The quiet ended with the approaching footsteps of Trina and Hermione.

"I was talking with Hermione outside," Trina addressed Tony, "and although having her stay with one of us may have worked out cheaper, she'd like to stay with these guys."

Tony thought about this. Now that she'd heard Hermione's wish, she felt rather selfish for suggesting anything else. The English girl had just been stranded on the other side of the world from home – of course she was going to want to stick with the only faces of familiarity on this side of the globe. Tony reflected on her tendency to have been the one in control of happenings without regard to how confused the visitors would be feeling, and she coloured slightly, feeling ashamed.

"Uh, yeah, of course," she said, awkwardly. "Well, we've paid for this full unit anyway, so at least there will be room for her. Just." She turned to Hermione. "And you can help Harry in showing the other two how to function in the muggle-world without any major destructions."

Hermione nodded, looking much happier now that she knew she was to stay with her friends.

"I'll get an information brochure from the reception office," she said. "That would have some interesting things listed, for us to do."

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Trina said. "Ask them if they have street maps too. Although I'm sure you'll be interested to look in the library, the others may not be so keen." She smiled at the understatement.

Trina reached into a pocket of her jacket and withdrew her wallet, to withdraw a crisp green $20 note, and a blue $10 one. She walked back into the first room to put the money on the table as she said, "Harry and Hermione can handle this, as they'd know how. And I'm going to leave our phone numbers on some paper with it as well, okay? That way you can contact either of us if you need to. I don't expect that amount of money to last long, covering all four of you, but try to make it last until we next meet up. Which should be tomorrow."

Harry led the group back into the first room to Trina and said, "How long do you think we'll have to stay here?"

Trina hesitated, before answering, "Here in the motel, or here in New Zealand?"

Harry looked uncertain at how to respond. Obviously, his question could have applied to either.

Tony leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes as she quietly sighed. Opening her eyes again, she said, her tone clipped and regretfully impatient, "Look, work with me here. We're leaving as soon as we can. We're hoping for about two weeks in Hastings, and then we go. _But_," she continued, unable to conceal the hope on her face, both for her and for the visitors, "you may be contacted by someone from Hogwarts by then, and we won't have to do all this. Our plan is the last-resort tactic."

There appeared to be nothing further that needed to be done right then, so Tony headed back through the kitchen and out the door to the car, muttering something about "short-notice," "work resignation", and "faster than my usual style."

The remaining five looked around at each other in the wake of Tony's departure, before Trina awkwardly summarised with, "So, yeah, get takeaways or something for dinner, and uh, call us if you need anything. We'll come and see you tomorrow."

That said, she turned and followed her friend out.

~~

The Gryffindor Common Room looked no different now, than it did when Harry, Ron and Hermione were there, Ginny was unimpressed to notice. The fire still burned bright and spiritedly, as if dancing with joy for no particular reason. Ginny threw a disciplinary piece of shingle from her shoe in, for good measure, before sinking lower in the plush red armchair. She still hadn't moved from this place since her brother had left, but had instead opted for despairingly gazing into the fire. She knew, of course, that this wasn't productive at all, but was unable to think of an alternative that would keep her mind of the disappearance of the trio.

"Still no word, then," a voice penetrated her thoughts, making her look up with a start. Lavender Brown had taken a seat opposite her, and was looking at her with concern.

Ginny didn't need to reply. Her sombre face said it all, and Lavender had surmised as much and so hadn't expected an answer.

"The library just seems so much emptier, with Hermione not in it," Lavender continued, in an effort to cheer Ginny by making conversation, but now worrying that she'd just made it worse.

Ginny had straightened abruptly at her words. "You don't suppose there'd be anything useful in the library about where they've gone, do you?" She said, hopefully. "I mean, Hermione always finds useful things in there for Harry."

A smile pulled a side of Lavender's mouth. "Hermione already has a basic knowledge of what's in the library, so she knows roughly where to look," she said. "Besides, I'm sure Dumbledore can do better than anybody else here, and he's doing all he can, I'm sure."

With a sigh, Ginny sunk backwards in the seat again. " 'All he can'…sure. He's one of the greatest wizards in the world, and it's 'all he can' do to wait for moves from You-Know-Who."

A silence from Lavender made Ginny look up, and she immediately regretted her retort. Could it be that Lavender hadn't thought Voldemort involved? Maybe she'd just scared her. But a look into Lavenders eyes assured her that she had indeed suspected – the degree of being sure – that Voldemort was responsible. 

A question was flicking around Ginny's mind, but she didn't want to voice it for fear of making everything worse. She was sure Lavender has the same question, and Ginny was glad that she didn't say it either. Despite Dumbledore's assurances, the question continued to plague them both.

_How do we know they're not dead?_

~~

Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall stood in the headmaster's office, gazing downward expectantly at the headmaster, waiting for him to speak.

The kindly old man rested his fingertips together, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with regret, with a hint of hope. 

"Voldemort has not yet left the country," he started. He reached for a lemon drop, while his colleagues contemplated whether this comment was meant to be a good thing or a bad thing.

"From this we can establish," Dumbledore continued, "that wherever Harry is, he is quite safe."

Ah, so it was a good thing.

"I have means of seeing the movements of Voldemort, and am sure that when he goes, it will be to Harry, at which time we will follow and intercept. Until then, he is just as clueless as we are to Harry's whereabouts."

"Headmaster," Professor Snape said sourly, "let us not forget that it is not only Harry who is missing. My prize pupil is also gone. Does this concern extend to him?"

McGonagall looked at Snape in shock at his rudeness, which Dumbledore was ever-placid.

"Your consideration for the students of the school is admirable, Severus," the headmaster replied. "I'd assume then that your heartfelt anxiety is also for the other missing students, Mr. Ron Weasley, and Miss Hermione Granger."

McGonagall could not refrain from smiling slightly as she looked again to Snape, who was looking rather taken aback.

"Uh, of course, headmaster," he attempted to recover himself. "With all this talk of Harry, it seems to have been overlooked that there are other students with him, and so this may not be all because of him." His tight-lipped expression assured McGonagall that if this debacle _was_ because of Harry, at least 50 points would be assured to be deducted from Gryffindor.

"I see your point, Severus," Dumbledore replied. "But I see no reason for Voldemort to have an active interest in the remaining students. Unless," he looked over his half-moon spectacles to Professor Snape, "there is something concerning Mr Malfoy and his activities you wish to tell me."

Professor Snape gaped for a moment, resembling a red-faced greasy fish, but saw that Dumbledore had effectively cornered him. He simmered lightly as the headmaster continued.

"As long as Harry is safe, I think the other three students share the same condition," he said. "Voldemort wants nothing with them – it is only Harry he wants."

Professor Snape look distinctly displeased that Harry was again the centre of attention, and Snape resented the headmaster's comment brushing on Harry's popularity, which spurred such unnecessary competition against his house. And, although he would not say so aloud to others, fought with his own personal biases.

Dumbledore must have know the general direction of the Potion teacher's thoughts, and he turned his head to look at him and said, "Of course, Mr Malfoy will be given every concern that, as a student of the school, he is worth."

McGonagall again stood impressed with the nature of Dumbledore's jesting. Her amused smile was reflected in the old man's eyes as she thought of just how much this concern he spoke of amounted to.

Not as much as Snape would like, she was sure.

~~

"I went round to the motel," Trina said to Tony as they sat at a small table outside Café Westermans, "but they weren't there. The lady at the front office said they'd gone out to look around town, or something. If we don't get hold of them, they'll eventually catch up with us when they run out of money and get hungry."

Tony smiled over the rim of her coffee cup as she softly blew on the swirling vapour rising from the cup.

"You got rather short with them yesterday, you know," Trina censured, with a small frown. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you they'd be feeling very out-of-place right now, and you getting angry would be the last thing they need."

Tony gave up on cooling her coffee anytime soon, and set it down for it to cool in its own time. "I wasn't getting _angry_," she said. "I was getting _frustrated_. There's a difference. I'm pulling my weight and trying to help as much as I can, and at my expense – at my _great_ expense, I might add – and the least they could do is co-operate while I try to get things sorted. They're acting as though I think it's great that they're here making a royal hash of things while I fling my money around for them at the smallest whim."

"Whoa, okay," Trina said tentatively, as if trying to settle a wild horse. "Settle down. They're not acting like that though. But I guess you're just getting stressed by it all." She looked down at her frappe. "So, you're saying they've outstayed their welcome in our fair country. Or at least, under our fair hosting."

"They'd outstayed their welcome before they got here," Tony grumbled in reply. "They should have just stayed in the books where they made a lot less trouble."

Trina frowned at her friend again. "Not that they were only in books to begin with," she corrected. "It was always happening, only we didn't know about it all until that Skeeter woman found a way to pen it all."

"Yeah, well, whatever."

Trina looked down at the swirling steam still rising from the cup of coffee in front of Tony. "You'd better drink that soon, girl – your attitude really needs it."

Tony glared at her friend and opened her mouth, ready with a sharp retort of the kind she would surely regret later. Then, as if in doing this she'd seen the sense in Trina's accusation, she drowned any forthcoming venomous words with hot coffee. It had cooled enough for it not to burn, but Tony still hissed through her teeth, bringing air across her tongue to cool it.

After she swallowed the hot flavourful liquid, neither of them spoke for a good few minutes.

"I wrote my resignation letter last night," Tony finally said. "They'll get it tomorrow, or Tuesday."

Trina raised her eyebrows in realization. "Well, that would explain a lot about the attitude. Do you think they'll take it well? The vets at your work, I mean."

"They won't have choice, will they?" Tony said, sardonically. "They'll probably ask why, and give me hassles about it, but they can't stop me going. They'll just have to find someone else to spare their pocketbook by working for meagre wages."

"Your pay wasn't _that_ bad."

"Still, my boss was right up with Scrooge on the Misers-R-Us list."

"What about your passport?" Trina said. "You said you'd have to get that sorted."

"Yeah, well, I was going to do that on Monday," Tony replied, "but considering the extra expense these guys are turning out to be, I really shouldn't be making purchases unless I have to. And Mum got me a passport a couple of years ago, when she thought the whole family was going overseas on holiday. The photo's really outdated, but it would still be valid. Because Mum keeps all the passports together and they hadn't been mentioned for ages – not to mention no one's used them – I'd forgotten that I even had one."

"Oh, okay," Trina said, mixing her frappe cream with her straw. "So without that needing to be sorted, what do you have left to do?"

"Do my final stint at work, then the hardest bit – just leave."

"Right. The hardest bit," Trina concurred.

"When are you going to tell your family you're going?" Tony asked. "You'll need to give them ample warning. And they'll want time with you before you go."

"Yeah," Trina said, a note of sadness in her voice. "I plan to tell them in the next couple of days – maybe tonight. I'll tell them how we're road-tripping up to Auckland, then flying to London." She sipped her frappe, before asking, "What about you?"

Tony didn't answer at first. "That's where we're different," she said. "Us and our families. There would just be too many complications if I told them about it. They'd want months notice, and they'd want to me to do lots of cultural research first, and contact some people over there."

Trina looked incredulous. "You're just going to up-and-leave in the middle of the night?"

"No," Tony said with a laugh. "I'll tell them we're road-tripping to Auckland. They'll suspect up to a week, I'll be away."

"And you'll just fly to London without telling them? What will you do once you get there?"

"Send them a postcard."

Trina sucked up her frappe cream through the straw so hard it belted her in the back of the throat. She coughed twice in recovery, before saying, "What?!"

"Ok, with a letter. Of explanation. Things will be quicker that way. Yes, they'd be shocked and upset, but they'd be shocked even if I told them in advance we were going. And we need the time – we need to go quickly. They'll get over it."

Trina blinked. "I could never do that to my parents."

Tony looked accusingly at her. "That's because your parents are different from mine. We both know that. I could never do this to your parents either, if I had them. I know my parents! Don't make me out to be so mean!"

"I didn't mean to!" Trina heatedly replied, before looking intensely at her frappe when she was looked at in disapproval for her loudness, by a passing pedestrian.

In the wake of the verbal exchange, silence again ensued, and Tony looked down at her coffee. The billowing clouds were no longer there above it, and the surface of the liquid had lost its creamy blanket, having settled now into its bland dark brown. She raised the cup to her lips, and upon tasting that the drink was now a distasteful warm, she put the cup back down and pushed it away.

It was bitter anyway.

~~

The door to the motel room hurriedly opened, banging against the wall, and the four teens bustled in. No one would guess they were different from any other muggle teens as they animatedly discussed the morning, Hermione unpacking the groceries for the plastic bag she had suspended from her forearm. Draco seemed a little more relaxed, and even occasionally included himself in their conversation, making his rare positive input at intervals. Ron however couldn't refrain from glowering at him when he dropped his McDonald's burger wrapping on the floor and made no effort to pick it up – commenting that 'the house elves will get it'. Ron's reminder to him that there weren't any house elves in the motel still didn't prompt him to clean it up, and Hermione quickly leaned down to pick it up and deposit it in the rubbish before an all-out brawl could ensue.

"I was so disappointed that I couldn't get a membership to their library," Hermione said as Harry pushed the door closed. "Some of the books in there looked really interesting."

Harry and Ron, who had now learned to ignore their friend's incessant comments regarding libraries and 'interesting books', couldn't refrain from sniggering at Draco's perplexed and incredulous expression, discernable through the wave of white hair in his face that he kept flicking away, frustrated.

"We're not going to last long just on this," Ron said, rifling through the shopping. "We'll need more money soon."

Any comments Draco may have been about to make about Ron and his accessibility to money were silenced by a swift warning glare from Hermione.

"Maybe Tony and Trina came while we were away. Where's the paper with their numbers on it? I'll give them a call."

Ron crossed to the table and glanced around for the paper, finally finding it nestled by one of the chair legs, and passed it to Harry. 

Harry walked to the phone – which was in the room with three beds and no table ('_rather silly_,' Harry thought) – and made the free local call, the faint rustling of the shopping back still audible from the kitchen.

Draco had made himself comfortable – well, as comfortable as he _could_, in a wooden chair – with a magazine, when Harry came back through into the room where the rest of his companions were.

"Did you call?" Ron asked.

"I got an answering machine. It told me Tony's cellphone number, but you can't make cellphone calls from the motel phone."

"Did you leave a message?" inquired Hermione; no doubt worrying what complications would arise if someone else heard it.

"I just said hi, basically. And that it would be good to see her again. I didn't leave a name – hopefully she doesn't know many local people with our accent. She'll figure out something to say if someone else clears the message."

Hermione appeared to be satisfied with this, and she crossed to the small couch, cradling two biscuits in her hand. "Ok, so we wait."

~~

Voldemort was restless. But all he could do was wait. Wait. He could wait. After all, he had waited many years for things before. His plan had begun. Soon, he would have what he wanted.

~~

"Okay, it's a week," Tony said, pacing the motel room restlessly. "I talked to my boss, and he's given me one pay period that I have to work before I go. That's a week, not two. And since I'm not getting a new passport now, we can manage that." She glanced over and Trina, who was curled up at the edge of the couch. "Can't we?"

The orange of the setting Monday Evening sun bathed the room in it's soothing gold, but the anxious New Zealanders had barely noticed it.

"I guess," Trina said, but her face betrayed that she wasn't happy about it. "I'll need to stay at home most of the time then. If I'm going to leave home for a long while, in just a week, Mum and Dad will want me home for most of that time."

"Right," Tony said, resignedly. "Well, we can work with that."

The Hogwarts students – particularly Ron and his expressive face – looked particularly excited that they were a week closer to getting home.

"Ok, so that's the plan," Tony said, once again resuming the leadership role. "And if you get contacted by Dumbledore, or whoever," she said, now directing her speech to the British teens, "let me know. Give me a call or something…" she turned to Harry and said with an amused smile, "…good way of handling the answer machine yesterday, by the way. I was the one that cleared it, so it would have been okay anyway, but all the same, very ingenious."

Ron had a glazed expression over his eyes as he near-whispered, "Soon. Soon we'll be home."

~~

On the other side of the world, in his dark house, the dark wizard smirked eerily and said, "Soon. Soon they'll be here."


	10. And so it starts

_A/N: Sorry for the late update – I'm incredibly swamped with studies at the moment, but I'll be done with that at the end of this month. Then I'll have two tertiary qualifications under my belt (neither of which I intend to use) and plenty more time on my hands to do updates. _

_Thanks for those who reviewed!  
'_Intuerimors'_: I am immensely pleased and relieved to report this is not an autobiography :) Having them actually show up here would give me more issues that I can count!  
 _'Mrs Fawkes':_ Although this story wasn't designed to have a moral per se, I think it gives the idea that actually having Harry and Co. turn up would not actually be a cool deal… Still, I'm glad you like the story_

_The term '**boot'** is used in here, as is the Kiwi word for the back compartment of a car._

_Thanks for reading, and please review to let me know what you think._

**Chapter 10: And so it starts**

"Well, we're really sorry to see you go, Tony," Rosemary the receptionist said, with a sad smile. 

Tony only smiled back in response, not really trusting herself to say anything. Of all the staff at the vet clinic, Rosemary and Carla were the only ones friendly enough to make the job worth getting up for every morning.

"Will we be seeing you much?" Rosemary again prompted.

Tony shook herself out of her reverie to reply. "Not likely. I'll be flying out to London soon, and I don't know long I'll be in Europe."

Rosemary's eyebrows raised subtly. "Wow – that sounds like an adventure."

Tony smiled grimly. "Something like that." 

Through the doors to the reception, she saw her car drive up with Trina behind the wheel, and was relieved that she wouldn't have to make the walk back home. She started to pull on her jacket, and heard a voice down the hall, "…hold this cat for a minute…"

Moments later a young brunette woman rushed out of surgery, taking a stethoscope from her ears to rest them around her neck. She halted in front of Tony, suddenly at a loss of what to say. Eventually she settled for a resigned smile.

"Bye," Tony said. "Remember, every time a dog bites you, be thankful it wasn't Richard – dog bites don't usually renew themselves on the hour."

Rosemary gave a hearty laugh, and lowered her voice to say, "Don't let him hear you say that."

Carla leaned forward to give Tony a parting hug, spying Trina squinting from the car, trying to see what was happening. 

"Ah," Carla said, "I see your ride's here."

Tony picked up her handbag. "Oh, and Carla, I left the blood sample of the Wilson cat on the Idexx – I've run the blood test already. High glucose. Just remember to dispose of the serum and equipment before you go, because I haven't done it."

Carla smiled. "Talking shop isn't going to make us forget you're not coming back. Now, get out there before your friend starts honking at you to hurry."

With one last look around the reception, and at her colleagues, Tony ducked quickly out the door, deliberately not looking back. She quickly slid into the front passenger seat of her car, shutting the door behind her, staring straight ahead.

Trina was looking at her in thought. "I thought you were glad to leave that job. Sort of."

"I'm glad to leave the boss. And the pus, and the claws, and the teeth, and the grossness." Her face contorted a little. "But I'll miss Carla and Rosemary."

Trina pulled out onto the road after Tony buckled herself in. "'you packed?" she asked.

"Mostly," Tony responded. "What time is it?"

Her friend looked at the small glowing green numbers of the car's digital clock. "Fourteen minutes past five – Friday hectics are officially over for the day."

"Tomorrow morning, the others have to be out of the motel by ten. We'll be ready to leave by then."

Trina glanced sidelong at Tony. "And your parents still think you're just going to Auckland?"

"We _are_ going to Auckland." She kept looking resolutely ahead. Trina knew better than to pursue the subject.

They were silent the rest of the way home, until Trina pulled up outside the curb to where Tony lived. "I'll pick you up at about eight?"

Tony nodded and got out of the car. She was about to shut the door when she leaned down to speak. "Oh, and Trina?"

Trina looked up; waiting for whatever emotional and positive poignant comment Tony had to offer.

"If you wreck my car I'll flay you alive."

Tony smiled lightly, as she made her way into the house.

~~

Ginny trotted out of the great hall after breakfast to talk to Fred and George. The topic of Harry, Ron and Hermione's disappearance, although often thought of, was not spoken of at the Gryffindor table. This had become something of an unspoken rule, ever since a food fight had broken out from a difference of opinion a few days prior, resulting in 6 detentions.

She caught up with the twins as they were whispering schemingly to each other, next to a portrait of an old woman. When they noticed Ginny approach, they guilty shoved something into their pockets as fast as they could.

"Hey, Gin," Fred greeted her, with faux brightness, as if he hadn't been up to anything at all.

Ginny frowned at his pocket. "What's in there?"

"Uh, a stray knut, a few biscuit crumbs…and a lolly from Honeydukes," her brother responded, with a look on his face implying that she'd just asked the stupidest question in the world.

"Really!" A voice interrupted. "If you turned out your pockets right now, I don't believe you'll find any of those things – instead a quite suspicious-looking apparatus."

Ginny looked around momentarily, startled by the intrusion, before noticing that the disapproving tone came from the old woman in the frame above their heads. She was frowning down at the two boys.

"What is it exactly, that you have there?" she continued.

The twins looked at each other, no doubt in censure at their mistake of standing beneath a disciplinary portrait while discussing unorthodox tactics.

"Something that's going to get Harry, Hermione, and our brother back," George responded with a self-assured snap. "That's a good thing, right?"

The portrait only huffed in reply, and the twins briskly walked away before she could begin again. Ginny trotted along behind them to keep up.

They stopped alongside the fountain in a courtyard, where George sat down.

"Really," he began, "that old woman thinks she has the right to discipline everyone."

"Is it true?" Ginny said, wide-eyed and a little out of breath. "Can you get them back?"

The twins looked at each other, uneasy. They obviously regretted their outburst – judging by Ginny's hopeful face, it wasn't the best way to have approached the matter. After all, they didn't have a fail-safe plan, despite whatever gadgets were at their disposal.

"Well?" Ginny prompted, with a note of desperation.

"We don't exactly have a plan or anything…" Fred said, grimacing as he saw Ginny's face fall, "…but they might help. George and I were going to do a bit of investigating."

Ginny grew excited, and hopefully opened her mouth to ask the thing that Fred had obviously anticipated, as he added, "I don't think you should come with us, Gin." 

Ginny gaped for a few seconds before heatedly replying, "Why not? That's my brother out there too, you know! And Harry's just as much my friend as he is yours!"

Fred looked at her with a face usually reserved for sighting a rampaging runaway hippogriff.

"Well…" he started, "you know how we do stuff mum wouldn't…approve of. You shouldn't get caught up in it." He tried for a more casual tone. "Besides, after Percy, you're the family's last hope of redemption for having an smart person in it."

Ginny wasn't about to let that meagre argument justify leaving her out. "I don't care!" she said. "You can't expect me to wait around helplessly while other people try to get Harry, Ron and Hermione back!"

"We won't leave you out of the loop," George said, trying to call a compromise. "We'll let you know how it's going on. You'll only stay out of the potentially dangerous situations."

"Let me help!" Ginny pleaded. "I don't care how dangerous it is!"

"I know you don't," George said. "But I'm sure Mum will. And of course we'll both feel terrible knowing you'd died when you wouldn't have if we'd left you behind."

Ginny's eyes welled up with frustrated tears. "I'm just as much an asset as either of you!" she said. "I don't care what you say – I _am_ going to do something! With or without you! I care about them all too much to keep me away, even if you don't!"

That said, she turned and ran back toward the Gryffindor dormitory, in an effort to not to show her tears. She was so angry and upset at being excluded from any rescue plans, she quite forgot to ask about what her brothers had in their pockets.

~~

Harry blearily rubbed his eyes and swung an arm over to smack the radio making that infernal buzzing… The strike only succeeded in sending the white digital clock-radio diving to the floor, its alarm still sounding loudly and the red numbers still blinking '8:00'. He reached down for it, fingers brushing the backpacks Tony had given them for packing the night before, muttering something he was sure Snape would have deducted points for, and finally found the switch to turn it off.

He sighed in frustration. After such a process, it was now impossible to lull back into the comforting blanket of sleep. He sat up with a scowl, and as he fumbled for his glasses and put them on, he muttered, "Not a nice wake-up call…"

"That's not how I would have phrased it," a voice came to him, equally grumpy.

Now that he had his glasses on, Harry could clearly see Draco sitting up with a scowl to rival his. Early Saturday mornings obviously didn't agree with him either. Harry let his glance travel to the third bed in the room, where he could make out a lump under the apricot covers. It didn't appear to be moving.

"Ron?" Harry ventured.

The lump twitched.

"Ron?" he tried again.

This time the lump definitely made a sound, and it wasn't a happy one. "What?"

_We have to get ready to go,_ the words sounded in Harry's head, but they didn't make it to his mouth. They hadn't been here long in this unknown place, and yet now they had to pack up to head into more unfamiliarity. Early Saturdays appeared to be bad enough without the reminder of that.

The bed covers were thrown back from the lump to reveal the sleepy Ron Weasley, who after taking a few seconds to blink and orientate himself, awkwardly clambered out of bed.

Harry turned to see Draco was already out of bed and the boxer-clad boy briskly headed for the bathroom, clutching a pile of clothes, and shut the door.

Harry regretfully moved to put his feet on the floor and unwrap himself from all the blankets that had somehow cocooned him overnight. He really didn't have much to pack, he realised as he pulled on some casual jeans and the first shirt he reached for. _Perhaps we could have afforded to take a bit more of a sleep-in,_ he thought longingly. 

He knocked on the door dividing them from the kitchen, wondering if Hermione had been woken by the alarm. The following 'It's okay, come on through' assured him that she was indeed awake. 

He couldn't conceal the surprise on his face when he saw that she must have been up for a considerable amount of time. Her bed had been neatly made, she was dressed and with a bright smile, and the smell of toast wafted from the small kitchen. Fresh morning air drifted around the room from the open door to their unit.

"Good morning," she said cheerfully, as she buttered a piece of toast then reached for a pot of honey.

Harry groaned. Hermione was obviously a 'morning person'.

"'Morning," he grumbled, sitting down at the table with a small frown. He started a little at the loud clack of a plate being put onto the table, and Hermione pushed the plate of toast towards him.

"Eat that," she instructed. "Then hopefully you can function."

Harry didn't respond, but instead sunk his teeth into the sweet crunchy slice. As the first mouthful slid down his throat, its warmth and taste roused him into the world of consciousness.

"Thanks, Hermione," he said gratefully, before hungrily taking another bite.

He saw Hermione place another plate of toast on the table, before Ron came trudging into the room, an expression matching the one Harry had had earlier. He mumbled something that may have been intended as thanks, before bringing his toast to his mouth.

Hermione sat down with a plate of her own, and after swallowing a bite she brightly exclaimed, "Now, I've packed most of our food, so after breakfast the rest can be packed away and we'll be ready to go."

"I haven't packed yet," Ron ventured through a mouthful of toast.

"But that won't take long," Harry assured Hermione.

The arrival of Draco stilled the morning conversation. The Slytherin looked impeccable, as usual, and to his credit he threw no insults as he made his way into the kitchen. Harry saw that Hermione hadn't prepared anything for Draco – not that this surprised him. He wondered how the blond would get on making breakfast for himself; surely he was accustomed to house elves doing the work for him.

Evidently this thought had just occurred to Draco, as an irritable voice said, "How does this piece of junk work?"

Harry couldn't help the tone of sarcasm in his voice as he replied, "Bread in. Lever down. Bread out. Pick up knife. Spread honey on." An amused smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he added, "Lather, rinse, and repeat."

Draco evidently didn't find this comment as amusing as the others did. He strode determinedly back into the dining room and sat down on the couch, trying to look as though his ignorance of muggle living didn't bother him.

"Not having anything to eat, Malfoy?" Ron taunted in delight.

"I'd thought not," Draco replied, "but Juicy Pulsating Weasley Heart is beginning to sound tempting."

Hermione grimaced in disgust at the notion, and Ron looked quite alarmed. Harry was grateful for his friend's sake that Draco didn't have his wand – he knew the blond was all talk, but if he had been armed Ron would be more anxious about his personal safety. The Malfoy family's association with the Dark Arts wasn't much of a secret.

"And you'd know all about what they're like, wouldn't you Malfoy?" Ron heatedly responded. "You and your Death Eater buddies probably have it as regular menu feature."

Draco knew that anything he could say in his defence was futile – Ron was already fixed in his opinion of him, as so it had been from the beginning. Draco figured that if he was going to be accused of such nonsensical things such as eating hearts, he might as well milk it for all it was worth.

He smirked confidently as he replied, "Only the ones from babies and virgin maidens."

Apparently this was the wrong response. Ron leapt up from the table sending his chair tipping to the floor with a crash, and he glared down at Draco who at this stage didn't seem particularly disturbed by Ron's anger.

"You're sick, you know that?" Ron exclaimed, almost yelling now. "Sick! Why's that Malfoy? You think you're too good for us? Too important?"

Draco stood now, too, and his voice rose in a shout to match his opponent's. "You seem to have decided already what my motives and future plans are, Weasel, so however I answer is irrelevant!"

Harry and Hermione were looking nervously at each other. The tension and animosity had been accumulating between Ron and Draco, and had apparently now exploded. Harry suspected that they couldn't persuade Ron to recant if they tried – maybe it was better to let them battle it out. Assuming of course, no bodily harm was involved.

"…just like your father!" Ron was yelling. "Just a puppet for Voldemort to do with as he pleases, and you'll jump when he says so! That makes you no more than his personal house elf!"

"Exactly what part of my personal decisions makes itself your business?" Draco shouted back.

"It'll be very much my business when you and your Death Eater friends come and kill me and my friends and family!" Ron retorted.

"Well you're not doing very well at ensuring your safety right now, then, are you?" Draco exclaimed. "Throwing stones at a snake will make it bite!"

Harry again looked at Hermione worriedly. At this rate, intervention was going to be necessary. As much as he hated to hear this argument, Harry was interested to note that Draco had in fact neither confirmed nor denied Ron's accusations.

"That's all you know how to do, Malfoy!" Ron said loudly, on a roll now. "Becoming a Death Eater is all in your sadistic plan! Look me in the eye and tell me it isn't!"

The room became quiet in wait for Draco's response. His narrowed gaze never wavering from the glare directed at him, he stepped closer to the irate redhead. When Draco finally spoke, his steady voice had quietened to almost a whisper.

"Except it won't make any difference, will it?" It wasn't a question.

Silence again enveloped the room, as the Gryffindor three mulled over this exchange. The silence was broken by regular sharp claps echoing around the room. They all looked up in surprise to see Tony leaning languidly against the kitchen bench as she folded her arms, an incredulous Trina behind her.

"You should have told me this was going to happen," Tony said. "I would have brought popcorn." Despite the humour of her comment, they could see she was far from amused. A frown was set in her forehead, and her tone hadn't been comical. Ron looked to be about to try to justify his part in the scene, but a slight shaking of Harry's head silenced him.

"You know what," Tony continued, as she walked further into the room to sit on the couch that Draco had recently vacated, "I'm not going to ask what that was about. I got the general gist anyway. But the point is, I'm going to be stuck in a car with you people for a considerable time, and if this is what I'm hearing before we've even _left_-" she cut off suddenly, dawning realisation on her face. She looked to Trina with an expression of apprehension as she pleaded, "Please tell me I'm not turning into my parents!"

Trina determinedly kept her mouth shut while looking anywhere but at her friend.

This elicited a groan from Tony, who resignedly reached for a cushion and covered her face with it as she slumped further into the couch. "Continue," she said with a wave of her hand, her voice muffled through the cushion. "Despite whatever your memories tell you, the past thirty seconds did not happen…"

Trina smiled in amusement as she said to the English four, "All ready to go?"

This flustered Hermione into action, and she started gathering up plates and cups. "I just have to pack away some of the food," she said. "Apparently the boys need to pack their clothes too, but they say that won't take long."

"We have two hours before we have to be out of the motel," Trina said, sitting down next to her still-cushion-smothered friend. "Just pack up now, and we'll check out and be on our way. And by the sounds of things, Draco and Ron will have to sit as far apart as possible." She didn't sound happy either, at the behaviour of the two boys.

"Iwis yor oyfen," came the muffled voice from under the cushion.

Everyone looked towards the cushion in confusion. "What?" Trina said.

Tony lifted a hand to pry the cushion from her face just far enough for her to whisper, "It was _your_ 'boyfriend'" as though this somehow made Trina partly responsible, before removing the cushion entirely.

The remaining four in the room continued to look confused as Trina stood, since they hadn't heard Tony's clarification, but they saw that they weren't about to get an explanation so they proceeded to pack their things.

Trina saw the last of the boys go into their room before she turned back to Tony and said with a wry grin, "Yours too."

Amazingly, Harry was right when he said that packing wouldn't take long. When Trina and Tony returned from checking out at the office, the boys were now ready to go. Tony figured that they had just shoved everything they had into the backpacks caring little for tidiness. With the exception of Draco, who had taken a little longer than the others to get ready.

"Right," Trina said, "we're good to go?" She turned to see Tony heading out to the car with Hermione's bags, and shopping bags of their food.

Harry and Ron emerged from their room with their respective backpacks, and followed where Tony had just gone.

"Draco?" Trina said. "Are you still in there?"

"He's already out here," Tony called.

Trina backed out of the unit and locked the door behind her. Tony was already seated in the driver's seat of her car, and the Gryffindors clambered into the back.

"I'll just walk over to the office to hand this in," Trina explained, waving the key. "You can meet me there, since my stuff is already in the boot."

 Tony saw that Ron had no intention of shuffling over for Draco to fit in, so she pushed open the front passenger door, and Draco quickly ducked inside with a touch of relief. When all doors had been shut (Tony thought Ron had slammed his a little louder than was necessary), she started the car and ambled it slowly down to the office.

Trina emerged, and looked questioning at the seating arrangements. "What's this?" She looked at Draco. "You're in my seat, boy."

Draco looked as though he was about to sneer a response, but Tony interrupted with the explanation, "Ron and Captain Peroxide aren't on the best of terms, as you know, so in order to avoid bloodshed, Draco had to be here. Hopefully they'll get over it soon, and you can have your seat back."

Trina looked distinctly unimpressed as she moved in beside Ron in the back, Ron looking vaguely apologetic for the disturbance.

Tony thought of her clueless family as she pulled out of the motel driveway. In a week, when she still wasn't back from Auckland, they'd start piecing together what she had done. Either that, or they'd think she'd been attacked by a city thug. She watched the Hastings landmarks that she had taken for granted over the years roll by; the paved square of the town centre with the art deco streetlamps and water sculptures; the large pool with fountains, train tracks running through the centre; the large clock that let out a large single 'dong' marking the half hour as she drove away from the area…

As the car left the last Hastings buildings behind it and entered the open road lined with trees, four low-spoken words quietly left Tony's mouth. "What am I doing…?"

She didn't let herself think of the answer.


	11. Men on a mission

_A/N: Due to how slowly the story was moving, I decided that each chapter needed to be even longer, explaining the length of this one._

_After a review commenting on spelling errors, I thought I'd better clarify to some of you readers out there that all spelling/grammar etc in this story is written in New Zealand English. Therefore 'center' will be 'centre', 'color' will be 'colour' etc. So to American readers particularly, this story may appear to have not been beta read. Although having said that, I'm sure that there are genuine mistakes that have slipped past my filters, and for those I'm sorry._

_Finally, if you're going to leave questions in your reviews that you want answers to, can you please leave a signed review so I can follow the link to find an email address, or just write the address in with your name? I don't want to end up putting individual elaborate replies to reviewers at the beginning of each chapter. If you leave an email address when you ask your questions, I'll do my best to answer them in a reply email._

_Oh! To those of you that have asked to be on the update mailing list: make sure that your email address is set to accept my emails! I've been turned away by a couple of AOL addresses, so I just want to say to those people that I didn't forget to tell you or deliberately leave you out – I just couldn't send the message._

**Chapter 11: Men on a Mission**

Two Hufflepuff students looked uneasily at the cloaked figure striding ominously up the hall. The venomous glare on the man's face was frightening, but the two girls remained where they were, the approaching figure's gaze fixed upon them with an angry expression. When he met them, his voice was as surly and demanding as his face.

"Where's Dumbledore? I need to speak to him." His sharp tone made it plain that he was in no mood for waiting.

"Um, uh," one of the girls stammered, cowering under the glare of the tall man, "he's, uh…I don't know…"

The man sniffed with disdain before raising his voice. "Well, find him! I shouldn't have to stand around here all day!"

"I don't believe it is necessary to address my students in such a manner," came a new, calm voice. Dumbledore had rounded a corner to see them, and was now looking serenely down his nose at the visitor.

The two students mustered enough energy to their feet and so rapidly departed. The visitor hadn't been pleasant in the slightest.

The two men stood looking at each other in an unwavering gaze, Dumbledore's face irritatingly calm to the other man.

"Is there some place we might sit down?" The visitor said. "Or am I expected to stand around in these halls to talk?"

If Dumbledore was perturbed by this rudeness, he didn't show it. He extended an amicable invitation to his office, and began to walk towards a large stone gargoyle, the visitor swishing his cloak and following.

After stating the password 'popping fizzy pebbles' to the gargoyle and was carried upward by the hidden spiral stairs behind it, Dumbledore walked to his desk and sat. Only when he had made himself adequately comfortable did he return his attention to his visitor, who had already seated himself and was looking impatient.

"Dumbledore," the man started angrily before hesitating, unsure of how to start his tirade.

"Lucius," the Headmaster amicably responded. This only served to further incense the taller man's anger.

"I have just come from the Ministry," Lucius said.

Dumbledore steepled his fingers in front of him, his eyes growing sombre. "I see."

"It has come to their attention that your protection over the school and its students isn't as effective as was thought." He said these last words with an inkling of a superior smile.

The Headmaster's face betrayed nothing.

"Is it not true, Headmaster," Lucius continued, "that students have been taken by Voldemort from these very grounds?"

"We do not have evidence that it was indeed Voldemort," Dumbledore amended, "but considering the history of those who were taken, it is a safe assumption I think."

Lucius snorted. "'Safe'. That is hardly a word to associate with the dealings of such a dark wizard, Dumbledore." He received no response, so continued, "I have received knowledge of the names of the students removed from your care by the object of this 'safe' assumption." Lucius now sounded markedly angrier and even a little fearful as he said, "Is it not true that _my son_ was one of the taken?"

"I assure you," said Dumbledore, "that young Mr Malfoy is being given the same concern as the remaining three, however needed that concern may be."

Lucius bristled at the obvious remark pertaining to his rank among Voldemort's followers. It had just been insinuated that because Draco was the son of a Death Eater his safety under Voldemort might be more assured, but Lucius Malfoy was unable to confront the Headmaster for such an assumption, as the words had not been directly said.

Lucius Malfoy stood. "If you are unable to protect those who have been entrusted to you, as I see you are not, I will see to it that your position of authority is revoked." He sneered patronisingly at Dumbledore. "After all, we can't have incompetence running the school, can we?"

That said, Lucius Malfoy swirled his cloak as he turned and left Dumbledore's office, leaving the Headmaster sitting in his characteristic silence.

~~

The car had been unusually silent since leaving Hastings. Undoubtedly, Tony and Trina were caught up in the thought that they were leaving their hometown for an OE they'd allowed four years for. Draco and Ron had obviously changed their animosity from yells and insults to ignoring each other in deafening silence, and Harry and Hermione saw no need for conversation.

Tony gave a small sigh as she thought of all the overwhelming events of the past week, and the days to come. The sigh was caught by the wind whipping past her open window, and taken away. A small smile ticked at the corner of her mouth as the wind blew her hair back, giving the feeling of all the problems and concerns being taken somewhere where they didn't matter. The open road in front of them had no other cars on it at the moment, and it seemed to stretch away into nothing. Tony slowly turned her head to look at Trina in the back, and wasn't surprised to see a glistening tear-track on her friend's cheek as she was looking out the window. Tony doubted Trina was actually looking at the scenery. Upon feeling a warning lump developing in her throat, Tony abruptly turned to face the road again determinedly. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't. She and Trina were always going to do this – so why not now? Nothing was happening differently to what they'd planned.

_Except for four issues sitting around me,_ she thought wryly. _They hadn't been in the plan._ She mused for a moment over what might have happened if the newcomers had instead approached someone else for help. Tony was willing to bet there was no one else on her block that had been planning an OE and had the funds for it. The students had come to the only place likely to be able to help them beyond pointing them to a police station. _Lucky for them,_ she thought. A disturbing thought suddenly occurred to her, and made her wonder if 'luck' had anything to do with it at all. _The website,_ she remembered from a week ago. _I need to figure out how that works in._ As much as it was making her to feel as if this was partly her fault, she highly doubted that a piece of non-magical machinery with the intelligence of a paperclip was able to teleport four people from the other side of the world. Other questions flew through her mind. If these four were real then, then the rest of the characters must be real. So why haven't we heard from them about Harry? Why hasn't Voldemort confronted us if he did this? How long is it going to be this easy?

_'Easy',_ a grim smile formed on her face. _I just called this 'easy'._ The realisation made her chuckle a little.

"Do enlighten us on what's so funny," came a voice from the back.

"Nothing at all, Trina," Tony responded ironically. "Nothing at all."

For a moment silence was again threatening to overtake them all, before Trina cleared her throat loudly and withdrew her gaze from the window. "So," she said, "are we stopping in Napier or just going right on through?"

"Oh of course we have to stop there – it's an unspoken traveller's rule. And there are several places in Napier we'll want to see before leaving it for years, aren't there?"

"Aquarium, Marineland, beach…" Trina counted off, "…uh, the putt golfing thingee?"

Tony laughed. "I'm sure I'll survive without visiting the 'putt golfing thingee'. And I've actually never been to the Aquarium, so I won't miss that – the rest of you can go to that while I just sit on the beach outside."

"Are you sure?" Trina asked.

"Sure," Tony assured her. "The beach is my favourite thinking spot – I could spend the whole day there. In fact, I have, before."

"Ok." Trina leaned forward in her seat for a better view out the windscreen. "We should be in Napier by now, surely."

Tony laughed softly. "Just coming into it now…see? 'Marine Parade'."

"I get the impression that marine life is a main theme on this street," came another voice from the back, reminding Trina and Tony that despite the reasonable quiet, they weren't in fact the only ones in the car. "With a name like 'Marine Parade', and featuring an Aquarium and some place called Marineland." Such a commentary could only have been said by Hermione.

"Well, it is along a coastline," Trina supplied. "There are fountains too, if you want to add that to your list."

"One of them in particular is really nice at night," Tony said. "This place has lights of every colour at night. One particular fountain is green, purple and pink…even the water looks neon. I really want to see Napier at night before we move on. We can make a day of it here, right?"

"I guess," Trina said. "There's enough in Napier to keep someone occupied."

"Of course!" Tony replied with an excited smile. "It's one of New Zealand's main tourist attractions for a reason!"

The sombre mood had indeed lifted now as the six people entered Napier. Tension had eased a little…until they were all thrown forward as the car braked suddenly. Trina said something that earned a startled look from Hermione, and she turned around to see if any cars had been behind them. Fortunately the closest car was still a fair distance behind them.

Trina was incredulous. "What did you do that for?" she exclaimed loudly to Tony. 

Tony looked as if some divine and uplifting idea had just occurred to her. "I just had a thought."

"Then I never thought I'd say this to anyone," Trina continued, "but for the love of all that is good and pure, _please don't think while you're driving!"_

Tony looked at her friend in the rear-view mirror, her face becoming serious again. "I knew there were no cars behind us."

"That's not the point!" Trina exclaimed. "If we hadn't been wearing seatbelts, we could have flown out the windscreen!"

"And if you hadn't been wearing seatbelts," Tony said as the car resumed its previous speed, "you would have deserved it."

"This coming from someone whose life was saved once by _not_ wearing one."

"Well," Tony amended, "I possibly would have lived anyway, but okay, I admit it saved my legs. But anyway, in the very same accident wearing a seatbelt _did_ save your own life, so there you go."

"You were in an accident together?" said a voice that had been silent until now. Harry looked at them questioningly.

"We're best friends," Trina said with a smile. "We share everything."

"Not that we intended to share that one!" Tony laughed. Spotting his now wary look, she added, "If it's any reassurance, I wasn't driving that particular time." Harry looked significantly calmer, although he couldn't help sneaking a speculative sideways glance at Trina. Seeing this, Tony continued, "It wasn't Trina either. It was a mutual acquaintance that we never saw or heard from again after he was whacked over the wallet in court."

The coastline came into view to the right of the car, as Hermione asked, "Was anyone hurt?"

Trina's face grew stunned, and Tony couldn't help but burst out laughing – a reaction that caused even Draco to look at her in surprise.

"A little bit, I guess," Tony said, still laughing. "And then some."

"A little bit?" Trina resounded, before turning to Hermione and informing her, "The bones in my left forearm totally shattered and needed to be replaced with what Tony calls 'Terminator Technology'." This reference was totally lost on Ron and Draco, who were still blatantly ignoring each other, so Trina clarified, "I basically have a metallic left forearm, which makes walking through metal detectors really fun. My dad worked at the hospital back then, so he visited me when he could."

"I would have visited you," Tony consoled her, "but I was a little…indisposed."

"She was still in a coma after the rest of us got out of hospital," Trina said. "Then she went into a rehab unit to learn to talk, walk, read and write again."

At this point Draco spoke, derisively, as he turned to her. "How do you forget how to do all that?"

"It wasn't that I forgot," Tony said. "I knew how to do it, but my body was acting like it had never done it before. It was like getting a new car and having to learn how to drive it… ok, so you wouldn't know what that's like. It was just difficult. But I learned to talk before I got my whatever-it's-called back. You know – the ability to make new memories. So I don't actually remember not being able to talk. I'm told I used a sign with the alphabet and pointed out letters."

Hermione was looking rather alarmed now, and looked at the two other girls as if she wasn't sure whether or not to believe them – they didn't look like they'd been in a nasty accident. "It took you two months to do all that again?" she said. "That must have been intense, if it was through muggle treatment."

Tony smiled at her through the rear-vision mirror. "Yes, I thought I did quite well."

"She was supposed to die," Trina said. "I heard a nurse say she had a 5% chance of living."

"I guess I just have an insatiable need to prove people wrong," Tony said. "That, and when I go it'll be my way, not bald and with machines having kept me alive. Besides, we were all meant to die on impact with the telegraph pole in the first place, or when the car split in half and the back went south for the winter."

"So even the muggles have Two Girls who Lived," Draco said, curling his lip in distaste and sounding completely unimpressed.

Tony turned to face him and gave him a warning glare. "If you make a big deal out of that," she said, "I'll break you somewhere that you'd be too embarrassed to tell Pomfrey about." This was sufficient to cause Draco to swiftly return his gaze to the road ahead.

Now that this conversation was over and their attention was free to wander, the passengers saw that they were now well into Marine Parade, and approaching a car park. Tony pulled into this, and found a place on the edge facing the coastline, before switching off the engine.

The small waves lapped at the coastline, and the endless blue expanse sparkled in the sunlight. The subtle roar of the tide was carried by the breeze, and Tony revelled in it for a few moments before abruptly opening the door and leaving the car to walk down the stones and driftwood to the beach.

The remaining five sat, the sound of Tony's door being closed still resounding.

"I guess that means we get out now," Trina surmised, as she made to do the same. "Who wants to come into the Aquarium with me?"

"I think that would be very interesting," piped up Hermione.

"You _would_," Ron muttered quietly, but it still was apparently loud enough for Hermione to hear. She turned to him with a disciplinary expression.

"I don't see why you're so against learning about new things, Ron," she said. "Come with us, it'll be fun."

Ron looked to Harry in a last ditch effort for an excuse to stay out of it. Harry looked regretfully at him before shrugging at Hermione in resignation. "Ok," he said, "it probably won't be too bad."

"But Harry-" Ron started before Harry interrupted.

"Come on, Ron, it's not that bad."

Ron settled for fixing a disgruntled expression on his face as he clambered out of the car.

"Come on, Draco," Trina said to the remaining passenger. "I need to lock this car up."

None of the Gryffindors were about to ask Draco to accompany them into the Aquarium, which seemed to suit him just fine – he looked to be in no hurry to go.

"I assume you're not coming in with us?" Trina presumed, with the hint of a question.

"You'd assume right," Draco said as he stepped out of the car.

Trina locked the doors before commenting, "Ok, the rest of us are going now – have fun being boring." She turned towards the street and started walking, the Gryffindor three in tow.

Draco watched them leave until he could no longer justify his staring in that direction without looking stupid. Now what was he supposed to do? He contemplated wandering into town, but the worry of him getting lost stopped him. Without any knowledge of wizards in the vicinity, and without his wand to catch the night bus, getting lost wasn't something that sounded like it would turn out well. He looked out to his left, towards the ocean, and saw Tony sitting on the stones, looking out over the water and occasionally leaning down to rearrange driftwood. Perhaps she could tell him some interesting places to go? At least, more interesting than the Aquarium…

He started towards Tony, and even when she heard the crunching of his shoes on the smoothed stones, she didn't turn around. Draco stood next to her, waiting for her to acknowledge his presence, but no reaction was forthcoming. Rather rude, really.

"Why do you like sitting on the beach, anyway?" was the first thing out of his mouth.

Tony picked up some small stones and let them fall through her fingers. "Why not?"

Draco went to sit also, but wondered if this would be tolerated by Tony. Back at Hogwarts he wouldn't have hesitated to inconvenience someone – he had actually gone out of his way to do it – but when he didn't have Crabbe and Goyle to back him up and the threat of telling his father didn't carry any weight, dynamics appeared to be different.

"May I sit?" was the question he settled for. He was determined not to say please – he wouldn't reduce himself that low.

Tony finally turned to look at the platinum-haired boy, who was obviously still getting used to not having any gel, as he would occasionally, frustrated, push a white wave from his face. She appraised him as if judging the safety of allowing him to sit, before turning back to stare resolutely over the water again. "It's not _my_ beach."

Draco sat.

"How long do you think they'll take in there?" he asked, motioning toward the renovated Aquarium.

"No idea," Tony responded. "If you just wanted to kill time, you could have just gone with them, you know."

"Pass." As much as he resented Harry, the Boy Who Lived wasn't Draco's biggest issue while so far from home. The idea of spending more time than he needed to in the company of one Ron Weasley when he couldn't hex him was an idea he'd rather leave stagnant. Evidently the same reasoning had occurred to Tony, even before she made her comment, as an amused smile had lifted the corner of her mouth. "This is rather boring," Draco commented.

"So leave."

The blonde boy turned his head to look at her sceptically. "You're not very pleasant, you know."

Tony actually laughed now, her sour demeanour lifting. "I have three words for you," she said, with amusement. "Pot. Kettle. Black."

Draco looked at her quizzically. He didn't have a clue what she meant, but he wasn't about to ask. Besides, he was sure she knew he was clueless, and he didn't want her to have the satisfaction of lording it over him. He was a little miffed that Tony didn't seem to mind if he ignored it.

He looked out over the rippling blue expanse, when he remembered the short drama on the way into Napier. Curiously, he asked, "So what was this 'thought' that we all almost died for?"

Tony's sudden movement startled Draco so much he could have sworn his heart stopped. "My thought!" Tony exclaimed in remembrance. She excitedly started to walk back up to the beach, and Draco quickly rose from the stones to catch up.

"Where are you going?" he asked, no wanting to be left by himself for however long the others decided to stay in the Aquarium.

"I'm on a mission of nostalgia," Tony said with a smile of anticipation. "If you like, you can come with."

Draco wasn't sure that he _did_ like, but he was sure he didn't want to stay by himself in one spot until someone came back for him, so he prepared to tag along.

~~

Fred and George had seen Lucius Malfoy go past the gargoyle statue with Dumbledore, and later stride away, and they'd looked at each other worriedly. The four students had been away for over a week now, so it was possible Lucius knew about Draco's disappearance through his contacts with the Ministry of Magic. Well, that would explain his lethal expression.

The twins were now in their dormitory, Fred rummaging through his trunk. "Here it is," retrieving the object that their sister had been too distracted to ask about.

"We just need something of You-Know-Who's," George said.

"Well where are we going to get that?" Fred exclaimed in disbelief. "We can't just _Accio_ him then say, 'Excuse me, may we have a fingernail or lock of hair?'"

George looked despondent. "Hey, let's go see Dobby!"

Fred was quizzical. "You want food _now_?"

"No, you great nit – I think he still has Riddle's old diary. You know, after Harry gave it to him in a sock."

Fred grimaced at the notion of being handed a dirty sock. "But You-Know-Who's disappeared from it!" he said. "At least, that's what Harry told us Dumbledore said."

"But it used to be his, right?" George said, excited. "It might work if we just have something that _used_ to belong to him."

Fred was dubious. "It's worth a try, I guess."

"Excellent!" George had bounded towards the door, not sparing a backward glance to see if his brother was following him.

It didn't take long for them to find the portrait of fruit once they'd reached their destination. George reached out a lithe finger to tickle the pear, and the portrait swung open to reveal the Hogwarts kitchens.

They had barely clambered through the portrait hole and into the kitchen when they were accosted by an eccentric figure adorned in numerous tea cosies.

"Sirs! Mr Fred Weasley Sir, and Mr George Weasley! Dobby is so delighted to see you, Sirs!"

"Hi, Dobby," Fred said, as the portrait swung shut behind him. "We were wondering if you could help us."

"Oh, Fred Weasley Sir, Dobby will do what he can!" A rainbow-coloured striped tea cosy slipped forward a little off his head to hang off one of his flag-like ears, and the house-elf awkwardly lifted a hand to straighten it. "But Sirs must be quick to talk to Dobby – Dobby must leave soon to prepare dinner, he must."

"Do you still have Tom Riddle's old diary?" George said. "The one that was inside the sock Harry gave to you when you worked for the Malfoys?"

"Yes Sir, Dobby keeps that diary, and the sock with which Harry Potter freed him with, 

Sir."

            Fred screwed up his face. "I hope you wash it, Dobby."

            "Can you lend us this diary, Dobby?" George asked furtively.

            "Certainly, Sir," Dobby said obligingly. "Dobby will bring it to Mr George Weasley when he has finished his kitchen duties for making dinner."

            Another house-elf, wrapped in dirty plain cloth, looked disdainfully at Dobby as it hurried past with a dishcloth.

            "Dobby must go, Sirs," said Dobby, seeing the judgement. "Dobby should be working."

            "Ok," said Fred, "but first, can we have some Whipped Chocolate Cremes?"

            "Certainly, Sir!" said Dobby with a grin, eager to please as he rushed off to get some. Other house-elves who had heard the request soon arrived with trays of goodies as well, and the twins soon had their arms laden with Whipped Chocolate Cremes and other items.

            They bid Dobby goodbye through mouthfuls of Cremes as they made their way stealthily back into the hall, for one of the hidden passages in Hogwarts. Despite having given the Marauders Map to Harry in their fifth year, Fred and George were still well versed in the secret rooms and passages in the castle.

By the time they had put their hoard away and come down to the Common Room, it was nearing dinnertime. They were greeted with the sight of Ginny slouched on a soft scarlet couch. Her face was contorted in concentration as she stared vacantly off into space. Probably thinking of ways she could 'help', the twins guessed. At their entrance their sister looked up, and seeing them, her brows drew together in a frown and she huffily walked past them and out of the common room.

They looked at each other in resignation as they followed the path she had just taken, down the Great Hall. Much of Gryffindor house was already seated, and Fred and George placed themselves next to Dean Thomas.

"What did you do to Ginny?" he asked as she saw the girl glaring daggers at her brothers.

"We didn't do anything," Fred replied in a tone suggesting Dean had suggested the impossible.

"She doesn't look very happy," Dean commented. "You didn't pull a prank on her, did you?"

"Us? Of course not…" George said in utmost seriousness.

Dean looked at them sceptically as a loud voice stilled the gossip of the students. Dumbledore stood to address them all.

"You may have heard," Dumbledore started, causing the remaining tendrils of conversation to die, "that some students have been taken by Voldemort." This opening statement caused alarmed gasps, and whispers resumed. Many of the Slytherin students merely looked around with open interest, some with a little too much confidence. "I don't hide this from you," the headmaster continued, "as the Ministry already knows about it. You would have heard sooner or later. Please do not see this as cause for alarm – there is no reason to suspect your lives are endangered as long as you stay here." Fearful whispers were still circulating the Great Hall, so Dumbledore clarified, "We have reason to believe that where they are, Mr Ron Weasley, Miss Hermione Granger, Mr Harry Potter and Mr Draco Malfoy are currently well." Upon hearing that Draco's absence was pertaining to Voldemort, many of the Slytherins looked rather nonplussed, and a few had expressions of open admiration for the boy whom they were sure was on some mission for the Dark Lord.

Dumbledore's face changed into a broad smile, "Now, let us put aside our sombre moods, and tuck in."

Food lavishly spread before them all, and the twins looked at it with a somewhat diminished appetite due to their previous indulgence in Whipped Chocolate Cremes. They served some roasted chicken onto their plates and bathed it in a rich dark gravy, but after taking a few mouthfuls, concluded that they weren't able to eat any more. Dean looked at them sympathetically, putting it down to them being overly concerned about Ron, but Ginny looked disapprovingly at them, correctly guessing the genuine reason.

The boys excused themselves early and went to their dormitory.

"Perhaps those Cremes weren't such a good idea," George surmised.

"Don't be silly," contradicted Fred. "They're always a good idea." This vote of confidence was followed by a grimace as his stomach complained. He flopped back onto his bed and groaned. He sat up quickly however when something landed on his bed.

"Wha-?"

"Fred Weasley, sir," said the creature, "Dobby has brought the diary that sirs wanted."

"Oh, thanks, Dobby," Fred said, quickly recovering from the fright.

"Is sirs going to get Harry Potter back?" inquired the house-elf, who looked to be almost quivering with worry.

"We're going to have a bloody good go," George said, resolutely.

"We'll do what we can," affirmed Fred.

Dobby only nodded silently before disappearing with a 'pop'.

Both boys looked down at the black book that Dobby had left on Fred's bed. It was battered, torn, dusty, and had a large hole in the middle from a large basilisk fang.

George picked up the book and idly flipped through the yellowed pages, each of them blank. "Well, he doesn't have his memory in here now," he mused.

"Were are we going to try the spell?" Fred asked. "Prefect's bathroom? An empty classroom? If we did it in the Slytherin area it wouldn't matter if it all went wrong and exploded."

"As appealing as that idea is, we'd better do it in one of the secret rooms – the one down the hidden hall from the fireplace will be fine."

"Ok," Fred agreed. He picked up the diary and slid it under the bed. "We'll go there once everyone else here is in asleep."

"Right," George said, with an excited smile.

It didn't take as long as the twins had expected for the other boys in their dormitory to fall to sleep. All the same, they waited until the moonlight spilling through the window illuminated George's bedside orb, which upon a whispered 'tempus', portrayed that it was just past midnight.

George slid out of bed, still dressed, moments before Fred too emerged. In silence the two boys mischievously tiptoed out of the dormitory and made their way down the stairs to the Gryffindor Common Room. After checking for any wandering prefects or other late night wanderers, they moved along the wall to a large bookcase that stood next to an ornate red and gold vase on a pedestal.

George twisted the vase a little to the left, at the same time as Fred removed two books from the further end of the bookcase to push on the wall behind. A few moments after, the back of the fireplace slid away to reveal a darkened tunnel. The two boys stepped over the charred wood still in the fireplace, and crawled into the tunnel. Once on the other side George felt along the wall to the side of the entrance until his fingers found a loosened brick. He pushed it to put the fireplace wall back in place.

"Let's hope nobody lights a fire," Fred said. "We'd be toasted on the way back in."

"Who lights a fire in the middle of the night, in summer?" George said. "We can always take a different way back, just in case the house-elves get overly zealous. Ow! Mind where you're putting your bony elbows!"

"Shh!" came the reply before the voice quietened to a loud whisper. "They're just as bony as yours! Besides, I can't see a thing in here! Lumos!"

A yellowish-green light emitted from the tip of Fred's wand, showing the rest of the short passage. They crawled along this to the end, where the light now revealed a corridor. Fred swung his legs over the edge of the tunnel end and dropped down to the gritty stone floor below. He held his wand up high for George to see where to go, and soon the two boys stood at the end of the corridor. It was rather dirty, with spots of algae on the walls.

They began to walk down the stone passage. About a third of the way down the corridor they were looked at disapprovingly by a ghost who had just drifted through the wall. For a moment the boys had stopped and looked at each other in worry, but either the ghost was too used to wandering students to pay much heed, or it just wasn't it the mood to interfere. Whatever the reason, it drifted on through the opposite wall and the boys put on a little more speed for fear of confronting anyone else.

A dilapidated door that almost blended seamlessly into the wall stood open, and the boys could see the room behind it, empty but for an old tipped over cauldron, and a faded cabinet. George made to walk in, but just inside the doorway he stopped suddenly.

"What?" Fred said, his breath hitched. He peered over his brother's shoulder to see if they'd been spotted. He didn't think it would be likely, as they'd travelled this passage plenty of times and never come across anyone else apart from the occasional ghost, but he couldn't think of why else George would suddenly stop.

George turned and said with a mischievous smile, "You know, you're right – doing this in the Slytherin area would be better. After all, it might be loud, and they shouldn't be allowed to sleep if we're not."

"Of course," agreed Fred. "Although, it's a pity that Malfoy isn't here to appreciate a good midnight explosion."

"Hopefully this won't make an explosion though," said George. "All going well."

"That wont," Fred concurred, "but this will." He plunged the hand that wasn't holding his lighted wand into his pocket, and when it withdrew, six small stones of different colours were nestled in it.

George's smile broadened. 

"I thought of it when we heard Dumbledore say his password to the gargoyle before," Fred explained. "When he was with Lucius Malfoy – 'popping fizzy pebbles'. Everyone knows not to chew two different coloured ones at the same time, unless they want to hear the bang merely seconds after they mix. Six different colours at once may rouse their whole house!" He looked down at the candies with remorse. "It's a pity to waste good sweets on frightening the Slytherins, but some things in life are an obligation."

"Definitely," George agreed. "It's a pity they won't cause any damage, but with any luck we'll get someone out of bed to investigate."

Fred pocketed the pebbles again and headed off past the open door to a trapdoor further down the corridor. The wooden planks of the trapdoor creaked ominously as they were lifted by a brass ring. Fred held his wand ahead of him, and the blackness below them was eradicated to reveal very steep stone steps in a narrow passage. They carefully made their way down the oddly structured stairs – sometimes they went in a spiral pattern, sometimes zig-zag, and sometimes straight. 

George groaned a little as his legs started to get sore from the decent. "How much further?" he whispered.

Fred was running his hand alongside the left wall. His deft fingers found a loose brick like the one above the back of the fireplace. "We've just passed the second floor," he said. His fingers skimmed over the brick without pushing it, and they continued onward down the steep steps.

"…First floor…" Fred said after they'd walked a little further.

George groaned again as they progressed. "Now I remember why I don't take this passage if I can help it."

"Here we are," Fred assured him minutes later. He pushed on a brick near his left shoulder, and they heard a faint click before part of the wall slid backward and to the side. "Sub-ground floor," narrated Fred. "I give you…the dungeons."

They quietly slid into the room the passage had opened into, and looked around as the panel slid shut. They were in a three-sided room that opened out onto a corridor furnished with a lush green carpet strip with shining silver edging, as was visible from dim torches that shone on the wall at intervals above it. The room where they stood didn't appear to have anything in it besides a large table with candelabra, and various portraits, all of which were asleep, fortunately.

"You remember where the secret rooms are, in the Slytherin area, don't you?" George whispered, tentatively.

"Uh…I think so."

George's whisper raised slightly in pitch. "That's not very reassuring after all the effort it took for us to get down here!" He stopped, and appeared to be listening. "Did you hear that?"

A rhythmic muted tapping could be faintly heard from around the corner.

"Quick!" George whispered in alarm. "Turn that out!"

"Nox!" Fred quickly responded in an urgent whisper, and the light from his wand was extinguished.

The boys ducked down behind an intricately carved leg of the table. Normally this would have been insufficient to hide them, but as the room was inky black since the extinguishing of Fred's wand, it would suffice.

Soon a figure came regally striding into view along the green carpet, its black cloak rippling behind it. It was characterised by long white-blond hair.

"Lucius Malfoy!" George whispered behind Fred as the man passed the room's opening. George tiptoed to the edge of the room, now mere inches from the carpet, but didn't peer around. As Fred crept nearer to him, they heard the muted footsteps grow louder as they moved from the carpet onto stone floor around the corner.

The boys now peered around the edge of the room to see where Lucius Malfoy had gone.

"Come on," whispered George, and slunk off in Lucius' wake, Fred following quietly. They took care with looking around each corner before moving down a new corridor. "Keep an eye out for the Bloody Baron," George added to his brother, "we don't need a house ghost alerting anyone about intruders."

Lucius Malfoy turned right again. "Is that another corridor? What if it's an office?" George speculated. "We couldn't follow him in there without getting caught."

"Wait!" Fred whispered to him. "I know where we are now! This is the south side of the dungeon complex. There should be a secret door to that room – yes, it's a room – over there somewhere." He pointed in the general direction of where they'd just come.

They tiptoed back down the corridor they'd walked, and Fred lifted a wall hanging of the Slytherin insignia, revealing an opening at knee height, just high enough for them to crawl through, but wide enough for two or even three. Fred climbed in first, pausing occasionally to wipe grit and dust off his palm that he'd picked up from the passage's floor. The passage sloped upwards, and it didn't take long until the boys had reached what seemed to be the end of it.

"Here," Fred whispered. "This should be it."

He slowly and noiselessly slid the barrier in front of him to his left. A chink of light ahead of them showed them to be behind a closed cupboard of what looked like vials, and a few books. George shifted the books to one side while Fred lifted the vials out of the way, one by one. When the cupboard space directly ahead of them was empty, they shuffled forward a little more, on their bellies, and Fred gently prodded open one of the cupboard doors a little, hoping it wouldn't squeak.

They weren't both able to see, although they could both hear what was going on in the room, and Fred peered out of the widened chink in the cupboards.

He saw that the room was an office – Professor Snape's office, to be specific, as Fred concluded when he looked across the room and viewed the greasy-haired Potions Professor below them, seated at a desk. He wanted to excitedly tell this to George, but didn't for fear of being heard.

"I thought you'd still be here, Severus," came the voice of Lucius Malfoy. He sat regally in a chair opposite the Professor.

"Lucius," Severus Snape responded in brusque greeting. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" His tone implied that Lucius Malfoy's presence was anything but a pleasure.

"You're aware that some students, including Potter and my son, have been taken by the Dark Lord?"

"Due to a speech by Dumbledore tonight, I doubt there are any who do not know," informed Snape with distaste.

"Ah," Lucius responded. "He always has had a tendency to do the most inappropriate things. Surely telling the students what has happened will only cause a panic."

Snape made no answer, but only waited for Lucius to continue.

"Our Lord had made no such mention to me of my son being part of his scheme of acquiring Potter. Are you equally ignorant of his reasons?"

"I take it you have not had much involvement in this case of his, Lucius," Severus Snape concluded.

"I have been otherwise engaged," admitted the Senior Malfoy. "My services to our Lord have been employed in the area of…muggle management."

"Ah," Snape said, knowingly. "It is little known outside the upper circle of our Lord's followers – which is why I am surprised to hear that despite your rank with him you remain unaware – that the transport of others was in actual fact a mistake. A mistake swiftly punished by our Lord. As well as retrieving Potter, the inflicted spell brought back those in his immediate vicinity, it would appear."

Lucius was incredulous. And furious. "A mistake? My son is missing because of a careless mistake?"

"Our Lord is not divulging information to us at this time," Severus Snape informed his visitor in his monotonous drone, "but I believe he maintains control – he has a plan for finding Potter, despite the Concealment Charm."

Lucius was still positively spitting. "Can't he bring back the others?"

Snape mused before answering, "I don't believe so, as they are all covered by the charm." Lucius' lips hardened into a thin line as he wallowed in his frustration. Snape dared to make it worse. "But," he continued, "I think our Lord would not retrieve your son, even if presented with the opportunity."

Lucius sat forward a little and bore a face of utter surprise and denial. "Why would he do that?"

"Lucius, my friend, it is not in our place to question the actions of the Dark Lord…" Snape censured, and Lucius leaned back in his chair in defeat. "…but one might believe that your son has prematurely been presented with ample opportunities to serve."

The room was blanketed in silence as Lucius contemplated this. "So…our Lord is going to use this mistake to his advantage. But my son has not yet been initiated into our Lord's circle, as he is not yet old enough."

"I'm sure you've raised Master Draco with ample knowledge of our Lord for him to be useful for his purposes."

Lucius stood, a definite mark of pride in his stance now. "I'll detain you no longer, Severus." He moved towards the door. "Thankyou for your…" he hesitated while thinking of an appropriate term, "…_enlightening_ information."

Severus Snape watched as the tall white-haired man left, closing the door behind him with a dull 'thud'.

The Potions master nonchalantly reaching for a quill and parchment was the last thing Fred saw before he inched the cupboard shut and replaced the vials and books. He quickly shuffled back into the passage, followed by George, and closed the secret panel.

The two boys crept back through the passage, and once listening for any wanderers but hearing none, climbed back out past the Slytherin insignia.

"Quickly," Fred whispered, motioning to a narrow side hall. They scampered down the narrow hall until they reached a snake statue with eyes of green gemstone. "Good, it's still here," Fred muttered, and pushed the one nearest the wall. A bookcase opposite swung open a little and they hurriedly trotted through, before it closed again.

"Did you hear all that?" Fred exclaimed to his brother, wide eyed, once they were safely in the hidden passage and striding along its slowly descending length.

George nodded animatedly. "I always knew there was talk of Snape being a Death Eater, but it seems it's true…" He trailed off in thought. "Surely Dumbledore would know, right?

Fred contemplated this. "Dumbledore has known a lot about You-Know-Who's movements in the past – he had to have gotten that information from somewhere. I reckon Snape's probably working for both sides. That would explain why Dumbledore's kept the beast of a man working here instead of firing him long ago for Inflicting Trauma to Students."

"Yeah, maybe," agreed George. "Even though he referred to You-Know-Who as 'our Lord' – which I guess he'd have to do, to avoid suspicion – he didn't sound too happy that Lucius was there."

"He didn't _look_ too happy either," added Fred.

The two boys continued to wander through the dim passage, mulling over this new speculation while looking absently ahead for the door to the unused room they wanted.

"It sounds like You-Know-Who's going to use Malfoy to get to Harry," George finally said.

"Yeah," his brother concurred. "But surely Harry would never _trust_ that excuse for a person? He'd always be aware of Malfoy's associates and contacts."

"I hope so," George said. "Here's the room we want." He ducked into a small nook they had almost walked past, and turned sharply into a stone room furnished with only a cracked porcelain sink with taps that no longer turned, and a old-looking wooden cupboard will small splits along the side caused by the excess moisture of the room. Lumps of stone that had been chipped or knocked from the walls long ago lay haphazardly along an edge of the room. "My mental-map tells me we should now be just below the Slytherin Girls dormitories."

"Right, let's do this," Fred said determinedly. He brought the old black diary that had been Tom Riddle's out of his robes and laid it on the cold floor. "Did you bring Harry's Tempus Orb?"

"I couldn't get into his dorm to get it before Seamus locked it for the night."

"What?" Fred exclaimed in disbelief. "We can't do this without having something belonging to Harry!"

"Fear not, my friend," George assured him. "I have something much better, that I acquired quite innocently before lunchtime today."

Fred knew as well as anyone that anything he or his brother did could hardly be described as 'innocent'. "What did you get?"

George proceeded to slowly draw something out of his robes, and Fred's eyes widened as he saw it.

"By golly," Fred said in awe. "Harry's _wand_?  How did you get hold of that?"

"Let's just say Dumbledore's office isn't much more secure than Snape's. I'll have to get this back soon, though, so let's hurry up."

"Brilliant," said Fred as George laid the wand onto the floor also.

"Okay," George said. "Let's hope we have this right." He withdrew his own wand from an inside pocket of his robes and pointed it at Harry's wand, concentrating hard as he whispered, "_Periclitatus Praeda_." 

A pale blue light seeped from the tip of George's wand and hovered above the wand on the floor for a moment before fluidly encompassing it in its soft glow. It stayed that way for a moment, before the light diminished, leaving Harry's wand lying innocently on the gritty floor.

"Okay so far," Fred surmised, as he pointed his own wand at the old black diary. "_Periculosus Venator_," he whispered.

Although the light was just as soft and misty as the one from George's wand, this light was a shimmering scarlet. It enveloped the diary before locking onto it with the alarming speed of a striking cobra. Once again all traces of a spell disappeared as the light diminished to leave the diary with its previous appearance.

"Well that part went well, I think," George concluded. He once again reached into his robes to bring out the object that the old woman in the portrait outside of the Great Hall had found so suspicious. He withdrew a small silver plate, square and slightly concave, with an unusual design carved onto the front and tiny grip hooks on two opposite sides. George looked at it in contemplation. "Quite a nifty little belt clip, really," he said. "At least, I think that's what it is."

"It'll work as that," Fred said, as his brother put the silver plate onto the floor and positioned the diary and Harry's wand to either side of it. "Right, here goes."

His face went grim with fierce concentration as he tried to remember the correct words and their pronunciation. "_Noceo iuxta laurus_."

The resulting yellow light illuminated every nook of the room, and the boys even had to raise their arms over their faces to fend off the violent brightness. They couldn't see what the main beam of light did, as their faces remained covered for the next few seconds. When they lowered their arms, the silver plate sat shuddering a little, before finally coming to a stop.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Fred asked.

"I don't know. I hope it worked." George leaned down and picked up the plate, which was a little warm now. He held it against his belt and the little hooks immediately reached out their fine silver claws to grasp the sides of it.

"There," Fred said, looking proud. "Now we'll know when You-Know-Who gets close to hurting Harry. It'll give Dumbledore a head start at intercepting him, if he knows in advance."

"Excellent," George surveyed of their handiwork, and gathered up Harry's wand and passed the diary to Fred. "I'd better put this wand back now – I pretty sure I can do it without waking Fawkes."

They made to head out of the room before Fred grabbed a sleeve of his brothers robes. "Wait!"

He picked up one of the blocks of stone from the floor and after putting the six Popping Fizzy Pebbles down in small colourful pile, brought the block down on them hard.

The almighty _'bang'_ that followed was only rivalled by the panicked shrieks that followed, and the two mischief makers scampered back to the Gryffindor dormitories through the conveniently available secret passages that received so much more importance to their Hogwarts life than academic study.

            ~~

_A/N: In explanation to the spells the twins did, '_Periclitatus praeda_' translates to 'Endangered Prey', and '_Periculosus Venator_' translates to 'Dangerous Hunter'. '_Noceo iuxta laurus_' loosely translates to meaning 'near success to do harm'._

_I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'd love a review letting me know what you thought._


	12. A World of Change

_A/N – Sorry about the late update – I haven't had access to an Internet connection (beyond the restraints of a pricey cybercafe) because of holidaying over New Years, and now I'm flat-out busy at Media Design School in Auckland. It's crazy I tell you! Crazy!_

_Anyway, I hope this keeps you sated for a while…_

**Chapter 12: A World of Change**

Ginny still wasn't talking to her brothers, on account of their determination to leave her out of any rescue plans. Although her own resolve to find a way to help was strong, she still found herself often feeling at a loss – much of her time in the Gryffindor Common Room was spent brooding in an armchair by the fire, and in class it had been noticed that she was generally more absent-minded than usual. Professor Snape had noticed her vacant expression during a lesson, so had given her the added task of writing a 3-foot long essay on the properties of the Revelare Potion. It was this that had brought her to the library later that afternoon. Snape had droned on for what seemed like days about the actions, ingredients and precautions of this potion that revealed marks…or something like that…Ginny couldn't remember. Showed a traitor? Ginny had surmised that it was some sort of magical tracking collar on whoever took the potion. 

The sight of such a number of books spread before her, yet little written on the parchment, caused her to groan softly as she despairingly propped her elbows on the tabletop of the cubicle and laid her face in her hands.

"Well, you sound pretty confident about it," came a low tone from on the other side of the cubicle.

"Of course I'm confident," came the equally muted reply, and Ginny recognised the voice as belonging to James Forscythe, the Slytherin Seeker. She strained to hear the conversation that was sounding decidedly suspicious. "I know that You-Know-Who has some plan."

"And your father's confident in this, too?"

"He's still a little sore over You-Know-Who killing my uncle, but I'm sure he believes it too. He wouldn't dare do otherwise."

Ginny concluded that the discussion was between the sons of two Death Eater families, and held her breath in hopes of hearing something that may give a clue as to where Harry was, or what Voldemort was going to do.

"So what's his plan?" James' companion said, still in a quiet whisper. "My father says he's not telling anybody. So how do you know?"

"Well," James whispered back, "I don't know exactly, but-" he stopped as he heard a small sound from across the room, but deciding it to be too far away for someone to be in earshot, he continued, "but You-Know-Who's confident in whatever he's done - he believes it will bring Harry to him."

There was a small gasp, and Ginny hoped that it hadn't inadvertently come from herself. Apparently not, as James' companion sounded suitably stunned as he responded, "But I heard there's a Concealment Charm in place – You-Know-Who shouldn't be able to know where Harry is, so how could he put a spell on him?"

James sounded puzzled as he admitted, "I don't know. Maybe he hasn't. But he has a plan, and whatever it is, he's started it. And judging by his mood in the past day, it's working."

The gasp came again, but this time Ginny was certain it wasn't from her – she was too frozen in shock to make a sound.

"Shh!" James reprimanded his friend in a harsh whisper. "Don't be so loud – we shouldn't be talking about this here anyway! Let's go, and I'll meet you in the Common Room later."

There was shuffling as the students moved away from their seats and headed back across the library. Ginny saw from their retreating backs that it was indeed James who had been one of the speakers, and the other was some Slytherin student she didn't recall seeing before.

She tried to get back into writing her essay for Snape, but after several minutes concluded that she couldn't possibly concentrate on it after she'd just heard that snippet of conversation. Voldemort didn't have Harry! This news brought her joy lasting only as long as it took her to realise that apparently it seemed he had found a way to get him. In panic, she hurriedly packed up her things – she could finish the essay later, she reasoned. After all, Snape had given her until the following Friday to hand it in. She briskly left the library with her immediate destination in mind – the large gargoyle statue to the Headmaster's office.

~~

"That was really interesting," Hermione exclaimed. "I'm really glad we were able to see the feeding of the creatures in that big central tank."

Ron shuddered a little. Evidently sharks didn't make him feel any more secure than spiders did. And watching them savagely eat the particles rationed to them hadn't done much to reassure him.

Trina smiled in amusement at Ron before looking up. "Thanks, have a good afternoon," she said to the woman behind the desk as they walked past.

The group of four walked back out of the Aquarium and into the sun. It had sufficiently warmed the air by now, and Ron basked in the shark-free warmth before enquiring, "Where's Tony?"

Trina glanced over the knee-high log fence and down the beach, to see that Tony had indeed gone. "Maybe she went into town," she suggested. She withdrew her cellphone from her green carry bag and soon it was emitting a copious amount of short beeps as she pressed the front of it.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked.

"I was going to call her," Trina explained, but it's Saturday so it would be more expensive. I'm Text Messaging her instead."

This made no sense to Ron, but he didn't pursue the topic. He only looked with a confused expression to Harry, who was smiling a little at his naivety.

The phone made a melodious bleep as the text message was sent, and Trina looked up in thought. "I don't know how long it will take for her to get back to us," she said, "so what shall we do in the meantime?"

"Can we just sit?" Ron moaned.

"Not a bad idea, really," Trina concurred. "We'll just sit on the beach until Tony – and presumably Draco is with her – gets back. Let's go."

With that said, the youths walked down amongst the stone and driftwood until they found a comfortable looking spot to sit, about halfway down the beach.

"Beaches are better when they have sand," Ron piped up with his opinion. "You can't make sandcast- I mean, cool stuff, out of stones and shingle."

"We have a sand beach too – 'Ocean Beach'," Trina justified, and Harry grinned at the name. "Yeah, I know – real imaginative," Trina said sarcastically. "Surfers go there, because sometimes there are big waves there that don't come to this coastline." In the following silence, she picked up a smooth round stone and tossed it gently up in the air a couple of times before throwing it away.

The silence stretched on indefinitely. Whether it was because no one could think of something to say, or whether they were preoccupied thinking about things was anyone's guess. Maybe it was both.

Trina was the first to voice a thought. "Are you and Draco going to be in a constant spat for as long as we stick together?" she asked. The Gryffindor three all looked at her, and then at each other, unsure of how to respond. "Coz that will really make things difficult," Trina added.

"He's Malfoy!" Ron answered indignantly, as if this explained everything.

"Ok, and now that you've made sure I know his name, will you answer the question?"

Ron adopted an incredulous expression and opened his mouth to speak again but Harry interrupted him. "He starts it. I know that sounds childish," he admitted quickly to Trina when he saw her giving him the same look she'd given Ron, "but for as long as he provokes the arguments, they won't go away."

"I'm not asking them to go away," Trina said. "I used to be in school too – I know a nemesis doesn't become a friend simply on request." She watched a seagull alight close to her and ponder her for a moment. As if realising she didn't have any food scraps to toss to it, it flew away, and Trina resumed, "School is where you learn so much more than just what comes from a book – it's where you learn how to appreciate those who like you, and how to manage those who don't. In an effort to survive this social development, students will form packs, whether they intend to or not, and those in the pack will show loyalty to its other members, regardless of whether or not they're in the wrong." 

Hermione said determinedly, "All friends should be loyal."

"Yes," Trina agreed, "they should. But that loyalty should be given only when it's deserved – it's not an obligation or a right."

"What does this have to do with Malfoy?" Harry asked.

Trina mused quietly while pondering how to phrase her answer. "I'm saying that what you and Draco have – this back-and-forth trading game of insults and sour expressions – may in actual fact have little to do with personal prejudice at all, but rather just a constant 'payback' for what the other person did previously." She looked pointedly at Harry. "Harry, tell me something – why do _you_, and I mean you specifically, hate Draco?"

Harry's brow drew together into a frown as he thought of all Draco's negative actions towards them. "He insults my friends for no reason."

A bemused smile tugged at the corner of Trina's mouth, and she looked out over the sea as she spoke again. "Does he, now?" she said, but it didn't sound like a question. "How do you know whether or not he has reasons? Have you discovered a way of getting into someone's head?"

"Of course not!" Harry responded. "But we don't deserve what he gives us! He just assumes we're rubbish and inferior to him – people should be known for who they are before they're cut down!"

Trina so abruptly turned her head to face them again at these words that Harry ran his words through his mind to see if he'd said something unusual. He couldn't see what, so he settled for looking puzzled.

"_Exactly_," Trina said. "And that's what it all comes down to." The confused faces only looked more lost, so Trina drew the conversation to the very beginning of their Hogwarts life. "Tell me, who was the first person to start this conflict between you all? And, what was it?"

"Malfoy," Harry said. "He was arrogant and when I first met him he said that Muggle-borns weren't good enough, and he mercilessly insulted Ron and the Weasley family on the train on our first day."

Trina looked thoughtful. "I'm not going to pretend to know everything that happened," she said, "but so far it seems that the books detailing your adventures have been reasonably accurate. So I just may be right…"

"What's right?" Hermione asked her to clarify.

Trina shifted herself in the stones to get more comfortable as she prepared to explain. "Harry, you first talked to him in the Robe Shop, right?"

"Right," said Harry, still a little unnerved that a stranger knew the finer points of his life due to a novel release.

"Who started the conversation between you two – you or him?"

Harry could tell from Trina's face that she knew the answers to the questions she was asking, but she must have wanted him to come to a conclusion himself, rather that her just tell him her theory. Harry felt slightly uneasy under this questioning. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how it was going to end. He felt a little like he was in a courtroom.

"He did," he said, tonelessly.

"And he started a conversation with you _before_ he knew if you were Muggle-born or not?"

Harry frowned. "But in the conversation he made it clear that he was spoiled rotten and he said that Muggle-borns shouldn't be allowed at Hogwarts."

"Spoiled rotten, huh? Well of course – considering the family's wealth, it's not like he has a choice." She adopted an expression from which Harry could tell she was about to ask another question she already knew the answer to. "What's the one thing Draco always says, to back up threats or to use as a reason for something to be true?"

Harry's brow furrowed in thought, but the answer eluded him.

"It's always something along the lines of, 'Father says…' isn't it?" Trina stated rhetorically. "He's given the best of everything because it's what his father thinks he should have, he believes the things his father taught him as truth, and he says and does things that his father tells him is in his place to do. He's little more than an extension of his father, because of the limits imposed on him by his father and by his status."

Trina's voice had grown a little louder while saying this, as if this would help prove a point. Her voice lowered again and she said, "What can you tell me about Draco that's not a report of his efforts to uphold an image? What does he like to do at Hogsmeade? What does he hope to get each Christmas? What's his favourite childhood memory?"

A resounding silence was all Trina was returned. She turned back to stare over the rippling water and watched the thin tendrils of the tide grope the shore as they climbed the beach. "So all this time," she summarised quietly as if talking to herself, "you've been hating a stranger."

This goaded Hermione into speech. "He may have been told many wrong things by Lucius Malfoy," she reasoned, "but he still knows what behaviour is just plain nasty. If he was really a good guy, he wouldn't say half the things he does."

"Oh, I'm not saying he's a good guy," Trina assured her. "I agree that a lot of what he said was totally unnecessary. But when was he offered the opportunity of something different? Did any of _you_ offer friendship?" She remembered something about this so before she could get an answer she continued in a voice so quiet the Gryffindors almost had to strain to hear, "No…you didn't did you…but not just that, you refused it when he tried…" She turned to face them again and said, louder this time, "if you refuse to throw someone a lifeline when they ask for one, you can't be surprised when their ghost haunts you for letting them drown."

The part of Harry's brain that wasn't trying to process all this – the part that was still adamantly against Draco Malfoy – prompted him to say, "Well if he wanted to be friends with us, he didn't go very well about it. And why was he sorted into Slytherin then?"

"Why weren't _you_?" Trina said, and Harry almost visibly flinched. "You asked the Sorting Hat not to put you there. Dumbledore told you about the importance of choices. Draco undoubtedly would have wanted to be put in the house that his father wanted him in. He may not have actively chosen it himself." She picked up a piece of driftwood and started aimlessly shifting stones around with it. "You also said you hated him for insulting Ron when he came to see you on the train – the _second_ time he'd tried to befriend you, I might add. What made him do that? Insult Ron, I mean."

It seemed the conversation had long since been just between Trina and Harry, so Hermione and Ron had been sitting quietly listening. Hermione had been engrossed in thought at what they were saying, although Ron's silence was mostly due to incredulous fuming.

"His father telling him Ron wasn't important?" Harry guessed.

Trina turned her attention from the driftwood and back at Harry. "He laughed." Her gaze travelled to Ron, and she now directed her speech at him. "Didn't you, Ron? You laughed at his last attempt to befriend someone outside of his father's circle of importance and influence."

Ron's brewing anger now exploded. "He asked for it! He thinks he's all that! He gets the best of everything and we can't afford it, and he just loves to taunt me mercilessly about it! You can't blame me for making him feel bad! If that's what I did, I'm glad I did it!"

"Perhaps," Trina started, "and I'm not saying this is the case, but just perhaps…there's a reason he keeps mentioning his wealth. He flaunts what he has, and yet he is still bound by the etiquette set by his father. He sees that you can't have the things his money can buy, but you still have the things he wants – a friendship beyond a Sons-of-Death-Eaters-United club, and you're a lot happier than he is. His money is dictating who he can be, to a degree – and it's all he has."

"Ha!" Ron said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Are you saying that Draco "Look-at-me-I'm-God" Malfoy could be jealous of a Weasley for being poor?"

Trina looked at him seriously. "Golden gem-studded chains are still chains."

In the following silence that seemed even heavier than Ron's yelling, Hermione finally said, "You'd thought lots about this, hadn't you?"

"Actually, no," Trina corrected her. "It was a theory that Tony came up with over time. When I heard it, I thought it was stupid too, but when it's fully explained I think it's quite plausible." She looked at Ron as she added, "…unless you're already convinced of your opinions and refuse to accept alternatives."

Trina sighed as she looked out over the sea again. "It was just a thought. Wow," she said. "I really went off onto a tangent, didn't I? I really didn't intend to get into all of that now. As I was saying at the beginning, I know it's relatively normal for you and Draco to be at each others' throats at Hogwarts – but when you're on the other side of the world and your very life could be at someone else's mercy, do you really want to be devoting you energies to avenging someone for an impression they fixed in your minds when they were an 11-year-old boy?"

"I'll stop it if _he_ does," Harry said, bitterly.

Trina lay back against the smooth stones and closed her eyes. "That's good enough for me."

~~  
  


The Great Hall was full of the usual clamour at dinnertime. Students busily talked to one another while managing to fill their mouths at the same time and Dumbledore looked serenely down at them all, although tonight his eyes were a little less jovial.

The arrival of three public owls surprised many of the students into stopping to watch. The mail usually arrived in the morning at breakfast. This must have been something important.

The owls circled the room slowly before gravitating toward the Gryffindor table, where each of them dropped the envelope they had been carrying in front of the intended recipients – Fred, George, and Ginny. 

The twins were looking at each other in confusion as they held their letters, and Ginny cowered under the intensely curious gaze of the other students. For a moment she thought she'd just pocket it, and open it later in the privacy of her dorm where there weren't so many curious faces directed at her, but upon seeing her brothers unsealing theirs, and hearing the urging from her nearby housemates, she open the envelope and withdrew the parchment from inside. From what she saw of her brothers' letters, they all looked to be the same, only with different names at the top. Ginny held the parchment close to her and hunched her shoulders slightly as she looked down at her copy, in an effort to hide what it said from prying eyes:

_Ginny dear,_

_I have just heard the most alarming news about Ron, Harry and Hermione. I am absolutely appalled that Dumbledore was not able to stop them being taken – and from Hogwarts too! I certainly don't want any more of my children there since your safety obviously cannot be assured._

_I am most distressed at this, but your father convinced me not to send a howler as it may cause unnecessary attention if there are any who don't know about what has happened, although I'm sure it's known by everyone over there._

Ginny asserted that the real reason was to save her and her brothers from additional embarrassment, and she mentally thanked her father.

_I have sent an owl to Dumbledore requesting your immediate removal from the school until this is solved and Ron, Harry and Hermione returned. I shall organise a tutor to supervise you in your studies._

_You'll be escorted to a Portkey from Hogwarts tomorrow morning. I do hope nothing terrible happens before then._

_Love always, _

_Mum._

            Ginny was incredulous. Leave Hogwarts? She looked to her brothers who had obviously finished reading their letters too and where now looking at her with equal shock. Expectant and curious students were straining to see over their shoulders, and Ginny quickly folded up her letter and pocketed it, refusing to tell her housemates what it said, much to their disappointment. Her brothers were doing the same.

Dinner was rather tasteless from then on, so after a short while Ginny mumbled a goodnight and left the table early.

~~

Trina, Hermione and Harry were roused from their sun-kissed doze by a shocked yelp from Ron. His immediate expression was one of intimidation, and Trina and the other Gryffindors turned to see what he was looking at.

"Do…you…want…a…drink?" the object of his shock repeated slowly to Ron, and waved a bottle hypnotically in front of his face.

Dark sunglasses hid the eyes of this newcomer, but the short wax-laden rich-blue hair was enough of an intimidation, even without the suspicious offer of the unlabeled bottle with a dark spitting liquid in it. Ron's eyes warily travelled over the stranger – whom he'd determined was a girl, as her dark sleeveless top stopped a little above her bellybutton to display a diamond-stud, and her overall body shape was decidedly not masculine, even though her large black pants lacked a feminine style, with their various zips and pockets.

"Oh, for Pete's Sake, boy," she said, exasperatedly. "It's just Coca-Cola – it won't kill you." She sat down with them and took a large gulp of the drink, just as the blond figure of Draco Malfoy meandered down the stones to join them.

"Oh my God!" Trina exclaimed. "Look at you – like the old days!"

The 'stranger' took her sunglasses off, and Tony's blue eyes – now somewhat muted by the deepness of her hair colour – looked at them, amused. "I really missed this – having blue hair. It will always be my natural hair colour, in my mind. I had to change it when I started at the vet's, coz apparently it would scare away all their clients and make the old ladies think I'm out to kill their children."

"You spent the last few hours getting new clothes, your hair changed, and a belly-button piercing?" Harry asked, still adjusting to the new image.

"New belly piercing?" Tony responded. "No, I've had this since I was…um…15? I think. It just doesn't often get shown. And I figured the 'posh-and-friendly tidy-casual' clothes I had before, clashed with the hair."

From Hermione's expression, it could be assumed that she was of a sceptical opinion on Tony's look.

"This was your 'thought' you had on the way over here, wasn't it?" Trina surmised. "Change your look back to what you wanted now that you don't have a boss to stop you?"

"What you said," Tony said with a smile. "Besides, this look works for me – mothers keep their little children close when they see me, so they don't get in my way, and you should see the way the crowds part when I come striding on through – who needs a wand when I have anti-magnetic force?"

"There's the downside that cops distrusted you on principle, though," Trina said. "And you were stopped at almost every store exit."

Tony shrugged. "Everything has a cost, I guess." She took another gulp of the fizzy-drink. "Besides, I thought it was hell funny when they searched my bag and never found anything – they always looked rather guilty for acting on what was clearly common prejudice."

The Gryffindor three shared looks with each other on this mention of action on prejudice, and Tony stilled. "What did I say?" she asked. "Trina, what were you all talking about while me and Draco were away?"

Draco, who had been quietly listening to the conversation in a detached sort of manner, couldn't hide the subtle interest on his face at this point.

"Uh…" Harry started.

"Just stuff," Trina mercifully finished for him. She looked directly at Tony. "Y'know, _stuff..._ about social things." Her gaze never wavered from Tony, and the British youths got the distinct feeling they were missing something.

"Oh," Tony said with realisation, her gaze momentarily flicking to Draco. "'Stuff'. Yeah, I getcha. Us too. Y'know. Just stuff." 

Trina smiled. "So that's done."

Tony slid on her sunglasses again, to ward off the sun's vicious glare. "Good stuff – now let's grab some lunch."

"Right," Trina agreed, looking at her watch to see it was just after 1pm. "Where are we going to go?"

Tony counted off on her fingers the places they could go. "KFC…McDonald's…Subway…"

"Burger King?" Trina prompted, for the list.

"Well," Tony said, "I don't really like BK, but there's that, I guess." She turned to the other four. "What do you guys want?"

"I don't suppose you have any Pumpkin Pasties do you?" asked Ron.

Tony's face contorted a little, and Draco looked like he wanted to comment but thought better of it, opting instead for maintaining a quiet, safe distance.

"Has nobody ever mentioned how seriously disgusting the wizard menu sounds?" Tony said, incredulously.

"I mean, seriously," Trina added, " 'Pumpkin Juice', 'Pumpkin Pasties', 'Butterbeer'… What the bananas gets _put_ in that stuff? And how can it possibly taste _good_?"

"Ok," Harry concluded, "so no Pasties."

"Subway's closest," Tony said, "but I feel the need for Deep Fried Calorie, so any protests to KFC?"

"Let's go then," Trina agreed, and led the group away from the beach. "Then sometime later we can kill some more time at the movies while we wait for night-time."

They hadn't been strolling down the paved city centre for long before it became apparent that Tony's hair was being noticed. 

"Not one for being inconspicuous, are you?" Trina asked, rhetorically.

"Well, I don't have a choice, now," Tony responded amicably.

Hermione still looked sceptical about Tony's choice of fashion. "Why did you get blue hair in the first place?"

"Uh, I like it…?" Tony said, her tone indicating that she wondered if there was a 'right' answer to the question.

"But people are going to think you're up to no good," Hermione said, nervously moving her own brown waves behind her shoulder. "They'll all think you're bad news."

"They can think what they like about me," Tony acknowledged breezily, with a friendly smile not resembling someone who was bad news. "It doesn't make it the truth."

Again, wary looks were swapped between Draco and the Gryffindor three. Tony noticed this and stopped suddenly.

"Ok, that is _really_ weird when you do that!" Tony exclaimed. "The facial communication thing! Do wizards communicate by osmosis in their natural habitat?"

The rest of the group stopped, and Trina made a noise that might have been something of a giggle, before saying, "No, I think they communicate with Sparklers."

"It's just different," came a new voice, and the remainder of the group were almost startled to hear Draco speak. Harry and Hermione waited to hear what he meant, and Ron was looking ready to dissect Draco's words in hopes of finding hidden plots proving malevolence. Draco's tone hadn't been signifying a truce, but it wasn't openly declaring war either – he had effectively placed himself on undetectable ground.

"What?" Tony said, as if she hadn't heard. "You mean the way you communicate?" She didn't get a response, so turned to Trina and admitted, "He's lost me."

"You and me both," Trina said, as she resumed walking toward the red and white KFC building, the others following.

"This." Harry specified after a few moments thought at what Draco could have meant. "_This_ is different. Aside from the fact we're in New Zealand. The very fact that Malfoy is with us and not only are we expected to call a truce, but if what you said was true, things might…change anyway…" His voice quietened down until it had faded away to nothing, as if he were too overwhelmed – or perhaps horrified – to finish the sentence.

"Ah," Trina said. "I see."

"_If_ things did change," Tony said hypothetically to no one in particular, "what would have made it do that?"

Harry shrugged a little, as if trying to appear nonchalant, as he said, "Stuff."

~~

When Minerva McGonagall stepped into the Headmaster's office, Dumbledore was seated at his desk, obviously having expected her.

"Albus?" the deputy headmistress said softly, to gain his attention.

"Ah, Minerva," he said sadly, "I assume you've come to talk to me about this sad business concerning the disappearances."

McGonagall sat in one of the comfortable chairs facing Dumbledore's desk. "With Molly Weasley withdrawing students from the school, who knows just how many more will leave? The school will be thrown into utter havoc."

"Indeed, it is unfortunate," the headmaster responded. "But such a concern – although it worries me greatly – will shortly be out of my hands."

McGonagall's eyes widened. "What do you mean, Albus?"

"I mean, Minerva, that conditions have altered and authority shifted," Dumbledore explained. "Earlier this evening I received an owl from the Ministry of Magic. It seems – and by significant influence of Mr Malfoy, I imagine – that they have decided me unfit for my post, due to the disappearance of four of our students from Hogwarts grounds."

Minerva McGonagall gasped. "Surely, Albus," she said incredulously, "surely they're not removing you from the school!"

"Keep in mind, Minerva," said Dumbledore placidly, "that I have been denounced before, and yet things returned to the norm. Let us hope that this may soon resolve itself."

"But Albus," McGonagall protested, "How will the school run without you? What is the ministry planning to do about the school management?"

"The school will be officially Ministry-run," Dumbledore informed her. "But there will be a central figure through which they will operate, and it is probable he will be posted as practicing Headmaster for as long as this matter takes to conclude itself."

"Who will this be, Albus?" McGonagall asked, still in disbelieving shock.

"I believe, Minerva," said Dumbledore with a sad finality, "that come next Monday, the school and its students will be transferred to the overruling hand…of Lucius Malfoy."

~~

Ginny couldn't remember having seen her brothers so sombre before. Not even when Slytherin had beaten them at Quidditch. George was nervously fingering something at the bottom of his red jersey, a silver object on his belt she'd never seen before, and Fred was looking uneasily at Professor Snape, who was gazing patronisingly back at him.

"You know, don't you, Mr Weasley," Snape was addressing Fred sarcastically as he motioned to the bronze eagle statue sitting on a pedestal in front of them, "how to use a Portkey?"

Fred's face changed to feign innocent surprise. "Why no, sir. What is this 'Portkey' you speak of? Does it bite?"

Snape curled his lower lip in disdain. "Be mindful, Mr Weasley," said the professor, trying to maintain his composure, "that despite the fact I may no longer deduct house points from you, you'd do well to keep your behaviour in check – you may not be free of my authority for long."

Fred obligingly kept silent, but imparted an irritatingly cheerful grin.

Snape drew his shoulders straight and stared rigidly down his nose at Fred as the Headmaster approached the small assembly in the quiet corner of the Entrance Hall.

"Ah," Dumbledore said, his tone sad as he saw the packed bags and broomsticks leaning languidly against them, "I see you're ready to go."

Despite the unfortunate – and indeed, even insulting – situation that Dumbledore was forced to allow, he put a hopeful smile onto his face, although it was almost lost under his long silver beard. 

"Let us hope," he said, "that this will all be sorted out soon, and you are all able to come back to Hogwarts – although perhaps those points will be deducted on your return, Mr Weasley." He looked with amusement pointedly at Fred, who didn't look at all worried.

Ginny picked a small carry-bag and nervously held it to her chest. "How will this be fixed, Sir?" she asked.

The headmaster's face was strangely withdrawn as he replied, "With patience."

Despite the fact that by now Ginny thought she should be used to the old man's cryptic speeches, it didn't make it any less frustrating.

Silence settled on the small gathering, save for the nervous shuffling of Ginny's feet.

"Well," surmised Dumbledore with a sad finality, "Doubtless, your mother anxiously awaits you at home." He leant a subtle nod toward the bronze eagle statue in front of them.

The growing lump in Ginny's throat and the cool bronze of the eagle under her fingers were the last things she felt before the pull behind her navel sent her rushing home.

The shock of suddenly feeling their living room floor under her feet made her stumble a little and her suitcases fell from her grasp and onto the floor with a clunk.

"Ginny, dear!" a bright voice exclaimed. "And Fred…George…oh I'm so glad you got here safely!"

"It's not as if You-Know-Who's going to abduct us just because he wants in on a Popping-Fizzy-Pebble Adjustment deal – which is all we'd have to offer," Fred stated – more than a little bitterly, Ginny thought.

Molly Weasley looked like she was going to say something sharp to his blatant sarcasm which was obviously not intended to draw a laugh, but she said in measured tones, "Now, Fred, I know you're not happy about leaving Hogwarts, but I believe it's currently for the best – you're here where I can keep an eye on you."

"Yeah," George said bitterly, "and everyone knows that the most powerful wizard in the world can't protect us as well as you can."

Mrs Weasley put her hands commandingly on her hips and her voice rose as she said sternly, "You're not helping anything, you two! I couldn't leave you in there knowing that Harry, Hermione, and one of my own, were taken-"

"…and Malfoy-"

Mrs Weasley didn't look appreciative of the correction. "-_were taken_ by the darkest wizard in the world!" At these last words her voice seized up and her face suddenly appeared to age 10 years as she dissolved into tears. 

The twins looked at each other awkwardly, and deciding that perhaps getting smart to their mother wasn't a good idea right now, silently traipsed up the stairs to their room, Ginny coming up behind them.

When Ginny tossed her suitcases onto her floor where they landed with a repeat 'clunk', she threw herself onto her bed and gazed in the direction of the small black split in her ceiling, though not actually looking at it – more at the empty abyss behind of it, into which her life had just be swallowed. _How can we possibly help Harry from home…? _She lay thinking. _And how are we possibly safer here? _

About half an hour later, her questioning thoughts were interrupted by her twin brothers striding through her door, and she quickly sat and drew her knees up under her chin. Fred parked himself on the light wicker chair in the corner of her room, while George sat on the end of her bed.

"So now what?" Fred looked at them questioningly. "Our Quidditch team has just lost three players!"

Ginny sighed. She shouldn't have been surprised that her brothers were concerned about Quidditch before they were concerned about lessons or what the Ministry of Magic was doing.

"It looks like the position of Gryffindor Seeker may have the same turnover as the professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts," George added miserably.

"Not to mention lessons," Ginny said, and seeing her brothers' expressions of indignation, added, "Oh, c'mon, even if you don't give a stuff about schoolwork, I'm sure you wouldn't like to be kept back a year so you're the only ones your age with the students who had been below you!"

This concept had the desired effect on the boys – their expressions displayed their renewed concern for their dilemma.

"Mum's not going to let us go back to Hogwarts," Fred said dully. "At least not for a while."

"But she also wouldn't be happy with us dropping out of school education-wise," George added. "So how is she going to fix that?"

"She'd better not send us to Durmstrang," Fred scowled. "From what I've heard Malfoy say, that school's really dodgy."

"Can't be any dodgier than some of the Slytherins at Hogwarts anyway," commented George bitterly. "Snape himself is the very essence of You-Know-Who."

Ginny's eyes widened at this. "That's a bit steep! You-Know-Who kills people!"

"So does Snape," Fred said wryly. "Just in a more slow and painful way than a flash of green light – he uses unnecessary homework, unfair criticisms, and a bitter, sour temperament. Honestly. Maybe he's frustrated. I bet he never gets lai-"

Ginny exploded in a fit of coughing that sounded less than genuine, her eyes flicking ashamedly to the doorway.

Fred saw that George was looking at the doorway too, like a deer caught in headlights, so Fred turned also, readying himself to face whatever censures his mother had to dispense.

He certainly hadn't been ready to face the unamused eyes looking at him from beyond the hangings of greasy black hair.

~~

"So, let me see if I've got this," Tony said. She again tossed a brightly coloured M&M into the air and quickly manoeuvred herself to try and catch it in her mouth. The small yellow disc made its rapid descent only to bounce off her nose and onto the carpeted floor of the cinema foyer. A light-hearted snicker came from her right, but she wasn't sure if it had been Harry or Ron.

She quickly looked around to see who'd watched the display, and upon reassurance that not many people had noticed the attempt, cleared her throat and said, "I did that on purpose."

"Sure you did," said Trina with accommodating smile, as she tossed her empty popcorn bag into a nearby rubbish bin and headed to the plate-glass doors opening onto the street.

"No, really," Tony said, with what was blatantly faux confidence, as she trotted after her, followed by the remainder of the group.

"Do you go to the movies a lot?" Hermione asked, looking up in surprise at the now darkened sky. She didn't know how long the movie was, but it has obviously been a good several hours, as the clouds were now grazed with the sullenness of evening.

"She does," Tony inclined her head toward Trina. "I'm not actually into them much. I used to like seeing horrors, but Trina refuses to see them – and I don't want to go by myself. It takes the fun out of it. But today they've been good for killing time, obviously."

They began to move through the slow-moving groups of youths who'd trickled from the movie theatre.

"Hey, nice hair," stated a rather charismatic guy – about 18 years old, at a guess – as he looked at Tony with a grin that she supposed he'd meant to be attractive. Judging by his closely packed group of friends around him, and his contemptuous smile, Tony was inclined to think that he wouldn't have said anything had he been by himself. Well, if he could play the superficial fool, she could give it right back.

"Hey, thanks," Tony replied with an almost-realistic appreciative smile. "If you think _that's_ great, you should see my phone number!"

However her response may have shaken the composure of the young man, she was unable to see, because a firm grasp on the back of her top had pulled her roughly backwards, and soon the face of the guy and his friends was lost in the milling people on the street.

"Hey, what-?"

"I can't believe you just did that! You've never even seen him before – he could be a total arse! Kindly restrain yourself," Trina said with an incredulous smile, and she released her friend's top. "And you'd better hope they don't watch _Friends_, otherwise you would have sounded like a TV-quoting loser."

"You have to admit," Tony replied, "you thought it was funny though. And I can hit on guys here now, because I'm not coming back for two years – or however long our OE will continue on for after we've dropped these guys off – so I'll never have to face running into them."

"Then why do you do it?" inquired Hermione. The look on her face indicated that Tony couldn't possibly have given any reason to her, to justify random flirting.

"Because I can," Tony said. "I need another reason?"

All she got in response was a frown from Hermione, although she thought she saw an amused twitch at the corner of Draco's mouth.

Harry, who had remained in silence, preferring just to listen to the animated conversation and glace around at the emptied paved street they were now walking up, saw that they were approaching Marine Parade again. The building that stood stationed at the corner, with the rounded dome roof, he now saw sported animated coloured lights. They blinked and changed in the illusion of bands of colour encircling the dome.

As they reached the edge of Marine Parade to walk across the Pedestrian Crossing settled under lit orange globes, they saw the various pictures laced onto streetlamps with small coloured lights of the kind Harry had only seen on Aunt Petunia's Christmas tree. The Hogwarts trees tended to have candles instead.

"Wow," Hermione said, as she gazed up and down looking at each glowing picture. "Look at that one, Ron." She pointed out an elaborately constructed image of coloured flowers strung in their lit web at the top of a pole.

"Yeah," said Ron, and Harry couldn't help grinning at the lack-of-enthusiasm sounding in his voice at the sight of a picture of flowers. "There are some odd lighted things here," he said, looking at the various art deco structures stationed in sequence along the grassy area in front of the shoreline. "Like that thing…and that thing on the fountain-" he squinted a little to see ahead, "what's-"

He cut off abruptly, and in the plentiful light supplied by bright lamps and decorative lights Harry could see a substantial blush forming on his friend's face. Ron was looking as though he intensely wished he hadn't pointed out "that".

"Some people call that 'The Spirit of Napier,' Trina supplied, motioning towards the structure that Ron had found so off-putting.

"The less patriotic of us," Tony added, "call it 'the Golden Girl', or just 'the Naked Lady.'" Tony seemed to find it infinitely more amusing to watch Ron's increasing blush than to look at the prominent golden landmark.

The golden form had her arms outstretched to the sky, bathed in an upward golden light, as she stood at the pinnacle of the springing fountain running between curved pillars and the added jets of water firing from the pillars themselves.

"Not really the best image for national acclaim," Tony concluded. "A naked woman with copious amounts of fluid running from-" she stopped suddenly at the deliberate dramatic shock and trauma written on Trina's face. "Oh, c'mon," she said with a laugh to her. "You know you'd thought of it too! How can you not? The thing's right there and larger than life-"

"You need to learn how to stop talking," Trina stated good-naturally. "Let's look at your favourite fountain – which is what we've waited out this whole day for – then we'd better be off. We've used a whole day already and we're only half-an-hour from home."

"Okay, okay," Tony responded. "Let's go then." She began to quicken her pace up Marine Parade, the others following.

Ron trotted a little to fall into step with Harry, and slowed to talk to him. "She's quite…out there, isn't she?" he said.

"Tony?" Harry said. "I think they both are really, in their different ways. Tony just shows it in a more…colourful way, I guess. Sometimes. But Trina definitely eggs her on."

Hermione was briskly walking on ahead, and Ron looked sideways at Draco, not wanting him to hear their conversation. Draco wasn't directly next to them, but was still too close for Ron's satisfaction. Ron stuck his hands deep into his pockets in a shifty sort of way, and pointedly and deliberately cleared his throat.

Draco's head turned at this and he looked at Ron. He didn't appear to be surprised to see the blatantly antagonistic look Ron was giving him, but again his face was unreadable. At Ron's increasing glare, Draco opened his mouth a little as if to say something, but he shut it again with a superior expression and strode further ahead in with a manner that could only be described as indifference.

Now that Draco was out of earshot, Ron looked at Harry and said, "You don't really believe them, do you? I mean, Malfoy had been unbearable for years – he can't just suddenly be a good guy." His face contorted a little at the last part, as if the very concept had a bitter taste.

"I don't know," Harry responded truthfully. "He hasn't gone out of his way to make life hard for us while we've been here though, has he?"

"Of course not!" Ron replied. "Because he doesn't have a choice! We're the only people he knows on this side of the world, and his only hope of getting back! I don't trust him. His father is Lucius – and he's always been so proud of that! You don't just drop that heritage overnight to become chums with your enemy. He must be playing up to us so he can turn against us later."

Harry chewed on his bottom lip as he walked, thinking about what Ron had said.

"What Trina was saying to us on the beach," Ron continued, "was just their view – hers and Tony's. They don't know everything. Even the most detailed novel doesn't describe everything."

"So you don't think they might be right?" Harry said. "Even about only some of it?"

"I think it was a load of codswallop," Ron affirmed. "And she dared to accuse me of being the bad guy! I mean, just look at him!" He looked with unmasked hatred at Draco Malfoy sauntering ahead with Tony, Trina and Hermione.

Harry was about to correct Ron that Trina hadn't gone as far as to say that, but one look at Ron's face convinced him to let it slide. He followed his friend's gaze to settle on Malfoy still keeping stride with the others. As if Draco had heard Harry and Ron's conversation, he turned his head – a wave of white hair shadowing his eyes – and offered them a sly smirk, which made Harry wonder if perhaps Ron was right.


	13. Hogwarts on Defence

_A/N: An increasing number of readers are asking me if any romance happens between Trina and Ron or Draco and Tony (or Harry/Hermione, for that matter) – although there may be a bit of suggestiveness occasionally, I hadn't planned a real romance there, for several reasons: 1) Ron and Draco are going back to Hogwarts – it would be a bit silly to start anything emotional if it won't have a chance of lasting; 2) I can't imagine Draco having any genuine care for someone in the way of a romantic relationship – he's still fixed in the mindset his father raised him with; 3) Tony and Trina are 4-5 years older than the others; 4) This story would become just another Characters-fall-in-love-with-author typical Mary-Sue and you would all stop reading it; and the biggest reason, 5) I don't think I could write romantic stuff to save my life – I suck at that stuff. You'd think you were reading a rip-off tabloid fic._

_Although all the things mentioned so far in Napier are real, the Backpacker's Hostel described in Taupo is fictional (though based on another one I've seen)._

_Enjoy…_

**Chapter 13: Hogwarts on Defence**

If Ginny had thought her brothers would feel properly chastised at having made such childish comments about Professor Snape in his hearing, she would be wrong. Despite the initial shock registered on their faces at seeing the Slytherin Professor in a doorway of their home, she could see the beginnings of amused grins on her brothers as they looked sideways at each other.

"Professor Snape?" Ginny said, hardly daring to believe he was actually there.

Snape eyed the three down his nose, as if he were looking at sitting blobs of Bubotuber pus, before drawling, "If you are quite finished your assessments of whom you deem threats to the wizarding society, kindly come down to your…" he paused, as if trying to think of how to describe the particular room of their house, "_living room-" (Ginny thought he'd said this rather distastefully) "-where we must discuss matters more…_appropriate_, to your situation."_

He raised an eyebrow at the three Weasleys, and Ginny thought this was intended to be more patronising than questioning. He didn't wait for a response, but instead turned abruptly from the room and disappeared.

"Well, I must say," George stated, "that has to go down in the Weasley history – assessing an evil man's sex life in his hearing. Quite a fine piece of daring, wouldn't you say, Fred?"

Seeing Fred's enthusiastic nod, Ginny retorted, "That wasn't daring! You didn't even know he could hear!"

George stood, and loftily looking down his nose at his sister as if he were a wise old man said, "That is beside the point – we accomplished the task, we are unscathed, and we have another fine report for dorm mates back at school."

"We don't go to Hogwarts anymore, remember?" said Ginny darkly, as she slid off her bed and made for the door. "We'd better go downstairs to see what he wants."

Snape didn't look as though he'd just been the subject of humiliating discussion. When Ginny and her brothers arrived in the living room, the Professor had been standing stiffly by a window – despite urges from their hospitable mother for him to sit – and his face betrayed no anger or embarrassment. But he looked bitter and ill-tempered on a regular basis, so it was difficult for Ginny to tell if the snippet of conversation had affected him.

When Mrs Weasley saw her three children waiting, she quickly ushered them to sit down. "Now, please be polite to Professor Snape," she said quietly, as if trying to make sure he didn't hear her. "He comes on Dumbledore's instruction." She then left the room in a fluster, giving Snape a broad smile that was a little too comical to be genuine.

Professor Snape waited a little before speaking while looking he would rather be anywhere but here – which, considering how he usually looked, wasn't much different.

"Rest assured," he began, "I am no more delighted to be here than you are to have me." He waited to be sure this fact had been absorbed before continuing. "Your mother has seen fit to withdraw you from the school. I, personally, bear no regret of this, but nevertheless your education must be continued in some shape or form. Despite my arguments for the otherwise, Dumbledore has assigned me in the job of tutoring you." The three faces before him couldn't mask their expressions of incredulous horror. Snape only sniffed indignantly before continuing, "Dumbledore undoubtedly had his own secret reason for this, although let us hope that his decision is overruled by the new management, shall we?"

The Weasleys obviously had not yet heard of any likelihood of 'new management', as they swapped alarmed questioning looks with each other. Professor Snape appeared to take sadistic pleasure in delivering this news, as he elaborated, "As every Hogwarts student will know by Monday, if not before, Professor Dumbledore has been relinquished of his post.-"

"He's been fired?" Ginny asked in a squeak, panicked.

"The Ministry of Magic would prefer not to use such terminology," Snape said wryly. "It's not yet official who the new headmaster will be, but Dumbledore of course has his opinions and ideas. This new headmaster may be sensible enough to recommend you to another school, so I may not waste my valuable time teaching students who have no appreciation for my efforts, and who can't even make the effort to get to school themselves."

"That's not our fault!" George said heatedly, bringing a sardonic smile from the professor.

"There is currently no debating the arrangement," Snape continued as if he hadn't heard, "so I will be here on Monday evening to teach you an amount of the day's potion lesson, and assign homework and research passed onto me by your other teachers. Be assured that even though you no longer spend your days at Hogwarts, your workload will remain substantial."

None of the Weasley children looked pleased at this, and they remained seated, looking worriedly at each other as Snape crossed the room to their fireplace.

"'Til Monday, then," he said with faux sincerity, before disappearing in the green flame.

"Dumbledore's been _given the boot?!" George's voice raised to reverberate around the room. "_Again_?"_

"It was sorted out last time," said Ginny, as much to reassure herself as her brother. "He'll be back."

"Y'know," said Fred, "I reckon I know why they think they had to do it."

"Oh, really," said George. "And why's that?"

"Well, think about it!" Fred retorted. "Four students were abducted straight out of what was supposed to be one of the safest places in existence! News like that doesn't stay quiet! The parents find out, and they panic – Mum being a prime example – so they withdraw their children from the school since there is no longer adequate protection there. I bet the Ministry thinks the only way they can persuade the parents to leave their kids at Hogwarts is by reassuring them that the students will be under somebody else's protection – somebody who they say will be more competent than Dumbledore in safety."

"They think they can just replace the best wizard in the country and expect him to be more competent in an obviously already-dangerous situation?" George said incredulously. "I knew politics was up the pole without a flag but that is just stupid! And _dangerous!"_

"Unless it's not," Ginny said quietly, having again drawn her knees up to her chin.

The twins looked at each other, then at her. "Have you gone completely loopy?" Fred asked.

Ginny looked as though she was thinking quite seriously about something. "What if they're confident that no more students will come to harm under the authority of the new headmaster?"

"Well then they're stupid and ignorant-"

"Or just in league," Ginny interrupted quietly.

"What?"

"I think the new headmaster is Lucius Malfoy," Ginny surmised. "I'm _sure_ it is. Or at least, someone like him. The only way they can be confident You-Know-Who won't inflict chaos, even though they have inferior capabilities, is if they're _on his side_."

"The Ministry wouldn't put a Death Eater in charge of the school just to stave off attacks!" Fred exclaimed. "That would be doing a worse thing – putting everyone in You-Know-Who's hands!"

"You know the Ministry will deny anything they don't want to deal with," Ginny said. "If somebody – say, Lucius – says that with the school under his hand, no such surprising interruptions will again occur, the Ministry will allow him to be headmaster, and won't consider the implications. He's already got connections with them, and a very rich and powerful status – he'll fit the criteria perfectly for a Ministry-representative headmaster."

For a moment, neither of the boys said anything.

"Bloody hell," George finally said. "Lucius Malfoy – Headmaster of Hogwarts. I guess it doesn't matter that we can't play Quidditch for Gryffindor – Slytherin's a guaranteed win anyway. Just imagine how his evil rotten kid would take advantage _that… good thing he's not there then, I guess."_

"Maybe," Fred said. "And maybe not. You never know how they'll use any little circumstance to their advantage."

"You think they'll use Draco Malfoy to take Harry down?"

"You bet I do – down six feet deep."

~~

"I hope she's not planning to stand there and watch that all night," Trina said, slightly impatient as she fidgeted in the front seat of Tony's car. Draco had finally co-operated enough to sit in the back with the Gryffindors, but just to play it safe, he sat by a window, and next to Hermione.

Harry looked past Trina's impatient face and out of the windscreen to see Tony still standing in front of her favourite fountain on Marine Parade. The sky was dark now, showing the effects of the fountain at its best.  The round structure – which would appear simple enough by daylight – was now flowing with coloured light. The fountain material itself was a fluorescent green, with a golden coloured rim peeking out from the top, where water was spilling over the sides in bright green sheets. As for the water being projected sky-high, Harry couldn't think of how that effect was made – surely the New Zealand Magical Government didn't display magical things so openly. It must have been muggle-made. Not that Harry particularly cared. And judging by Tony's look, she didn't care either. A vertical stream of unnaturally blue water was shooting into the air, first in one tall jet, then a smaller one surrounded by a ring of little sprays, then dispersed evenly… The water would suddenly change colour as they watched, too – from blue…to purple…yellow…pink…orange…scarlet….

"C'mon!" Trina yelled to her friend. She'd pushed open her door and was now leaning half out of it to call to Tony.

"Just a few seconds more!" Tony called back. "I haven't seen the best bit! It should be soon-"

And then it happened.  Even Ron, who could never have been said to be much interested in fountains, gave a small gasp as he watched. The scarlet water streamed the highest they had seen it reach, in a perfectly vertical liquid laser cutting across the darkened sky.

"Whoa!" Tony was saying. "Isn't that coolest fountain you ever saw?!"

Even Trina was transfixed for a while, but she soon returned her attention to the time, so once again called Tony to the car. Tony looked down at the shallow pool surrounding the fountain and squatted down at its edge. She scooped up a handful of water and watched it fall through her fingers, and scooped some of the liquid across her arm, where the cooling droplets ran down it and dripped off. Finally, Tony stood and approached the car.

As she sat down in front of the steering wheel and fastened her seatbelt, she said, "I think that fountain's one of the best things I'll miss."

"Really," Trina said, exasperated. "Anyone would think you were about to die and you'd never see it again!"

"Hey, that could happen!" Tony reasoned. "I could get raped and murdered – my body grated into tiny pieces and fed to fishes and house pets – and I'll never see home again!"

"Now then," Trina said in a mock condescending tone, "we mustn't get our hopes up."

An amused snicker came from the back seat but the girls in the front couldn't tell whom it had come from.

"Anyway," Trina continued as Tony began to pull out of the carpark, "I'm positive that won't happen…" Tony relaxed a little, looking reassured. "…because I'm sure there's a clause somewhere in the Animal Welfare Act that forbids such poison and bad nutrition being anywhere near the animal's system."

For a moment Tony's jaw hung in suspended animation, but no speech came out. Finally she said, "Oh that was good – I couldn't come up with a good retort for that one. Or maybe I'm just getting slack… All the retorts I could come up with sounded too High School."

Trina smiled in self-satisfaction.

"Are we going to get anywhere in a while?" Draco said complaining, "Because a whole day has passed since we supposedly left and we're only half an hour from where we started from!"

Tony grumbled something that sounded like it included 'whining little arse…' but for the most part, it came out in an incoherent mumble.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Draco said, with false sincerity.

"I said," Tony looked at him in the rear-view mirror as she drove, "that you're right – so we're driving straight on up to Taupo tonight. Feel free to nap on the way. Or you may like to jump out the window – it makes no difference to me."

Draco sat back against his seat and muttered sideways out of his mouth, "and you worry that _my_ attitude is of an evil person, Weasley."

Ron shot him a look that plainly said Draco _was_ an evil person, but he didn't open his mouth and start an argument.

"Where's Taupo?" Hermione asked, looking out at the already-dark sky.

"About three hours from here," Tony said. "We – meaning, Trina and I – have no particular sight-seeing place to stop at between here and there, so we'll go straight on up there tonight."

"Then what?" Draco said. "We're not expected to sleep in the car all the time, surely."

Tony opened her mouth to respond, but Trina intercepted. After all, there was only so much of Tony's sarcastic comments that a person could take before they just wanted to yell at her. This thought – which reminded Trina of Draco himself – made her laugh quietly to herself. "We'll stay at a motel or something, overnight," Trina informed the Slytherin. "Or a backpackers – someplace cheap."

Draco looked like he would have preferred Trina to leave out this last fact. "What about dinner?"

Trina would have commented on the whinge-factor of this question, but she suspected that if Draco hadn't asked it, Ron would have. This thought was confirmed by the redhead looking at her expectantly.

"We'll grab takeaways," Tony answered for her. "I know it's getting late already, but keep your belly under control while we put a bit of distance behind us. I'm sure you'll live."

"Which is more than I could say for _you_ if I had my wand," Draco muttered, drawing an accusing see-I-was-right look from Ron.

But to Ron's surprise, Tony lightened considerably as she burst out laughing. "That's it," she encouraged with a smile. "Feel the hippie love in here…isn't it great?"

Trina joined in the laughing; leaving the Gryffindors looking confused, unsure whether they should be laughing too, and Draco was just looking deflated.

The bright lights of Napier city dwindled to nothing as the car left to wade through the surrounding darkness. Tony flicked the headlights onto high beam to illuminate the road ahead and the car fell into silence as the laughter subsided.

"As much as I hate to interrupt," Tony finally said, "I think it is my duty to inform you that unless a suitable topic of conversation is found, the radio goes on."

 "What should we talk about then?" Ron asked, with the air of someone who had just been given a class assignment.

"Well," Tony enlightened him, "we could discuss what I had for breakfast – Manuka Honey on toast. That honey is really expensive from _Comvita_ at retail price, but seeing as my uncle owns most of the company he gets it really-"

"Not that we all want to hear about your breakfast," Trina informed her.

"I have to say," Tony said, "it took longer for you to interrupt than I thought it would."

Silence again ruled, but this time Tony didn't try to encourage conversation. At one point she had reached for the radio, but spotting the glance from Trina that plainly said, 'Don't you dare', she snatched her hand back as though it had been bitten and contented herself with listening to the hum of the engine.

She suspected Trina was utilising the time to think about…well, any one of the confusing issues arisen in the past week. Tony had been trying to avoid thinking about it too much. After all, what would it accomplish, aside from birthing blaring stress and bring on a panic attack? The roll of the tyres on the road and the guttural hum of the engine had a strangely hypnotic effect, which was soon interrupted by soft dozing snores from Ron.

Tony glanced into the rear view mirror to make out who else was asleep. Draco was still awake and staring out of the window, with his elbow propped up on the armrest, but he looked to be too lethargic to have any response to Ron. Next to him, Hermione was fidgeting under Ron's slumped weight, but the attempt was half-hearted as she too was succumbing to the calming blanket of sleep. As for Harry, as far as Tony could see, he was doing the tragic thing that all young heroes of the world did – gazing sombrely out of the window as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and only he could save them all from eternal…something bad.

Tony smirked amusedly to herself at this as she turned her eyes back to the road. _What on earth does he find to think about_, she wondered.

Quite a lot, it seemed. The trees whizzing past the window had merged into a subconscious blur in Harry's mind. A particular matter continued to press him - the matter of his scar. Why hadn't he been plagued by bouts of pain pertaining to Voldemort's frustration? Surely the dark wizard would know that the students were out of his reach due to a protection charm that must have been cast? Despite that fact that pain still remained absent, Harry absent-mindedly reached up to his forehead to trace the narrow lightning shape of a scar that he'd had most of his life. If Voldemort wasn't constantly angry despite them being protected…he must have a plan, Harry realised. And a good one – it must be in action right now. Had this fact occurred to any of the others? Perhaps, to one of them, this wasn't a bad thing…

Harry slowly turned to see Draco Malfoy still looking absently outside. As if sensing Harry's gaze on him, Draco turned to face him in one slow and fluid motion, as if to move any faster took too much effort. Harry thought the movement looked rather ominous. Harry looked directly into his school-nemesis's eyes, refusing to look away, as if to attain if Draco was having any affiliation to Voldemort, communicated through the shadowed grey eyes. Draco only held his gaze for a moment before fluidly turning back to the window to look outward blankly, as if the exchange hadn't occurred.

Harry turned back with a small frustrated sigh. Although he hadn't actually expected to find any answers in Draco's gaze, of course, he had still hoped for a clue as to where Draco stood on the whole matter. _Ron's right,_ he thought. _After all, Tony and Trina don't know him…not really… But what if their objective stand makes them see things more clearly… what if they're right… Maybe it's- or maybe…_ He started to find it hard to think. _Maybe…_

"Wake up, to all those unconscious!" came the call that brought Harry sharply around, a couple of hours later.

"Wha-?" came a bleary voice to Harry's right, which he identified to be Ron's.

As bodies slowly shifted into consciousness, they caught a hot delicious smell wafting around the car interior. Harry sat up from his slouch to see that the car had come to a standstill on the side of an unfamiliar street, and the driver's door stood open. Tony's silhouette could be seen leaning in through the door clutching a pack of some sort in her hands, and as she reached up an arm to switch on the car's inside lights, the 'pack' was seen to be newspaper wrapped around something hot.

"Oh, yum," Trina said, as Tony put the package down on the glovebox by her seat, and pulled the door shut behind her. "We're eating this in the car?"

"Yeah, I figured we'd dine with the kiwi finesse," Tony said with a smile. "Plus, I thought it was getting a tad chilly outside. And also I like to be able to see what I'm eating!"

The English youths were still blearily getting used to the light. Although Draco had retained some semblance of consciousness over the journey of several hours, he certainly wasn't used to the copious amounts of light around them all. They all watched as Tony folded back the edges of the newspaper – pausing at one stage to read a Garfield cartoon imprinted on the underside – to expose an inner layer of plain white paper. She stopped again to glance at a newspaper article with an interest that Harry suspected was less than genuine.

"Oh, hurry up!" Trina said, but before Tony had a chance to oblige, Trina was unwrapping the white paper herself.

The steaming pile of fat chips sat in all their golden glory, and Tony squirted a sachet of tomato sauce next to them.

"Well that'll last you half a chip," Trina said mockingly. It was Wonder of the World among people who knew Tony, just how much tomato sauce she consumed with…well, a lot more things that for which it was intended, Trina was sure.

"I know," Tony replied, refusing to rise to the bait. "That's why I got these." She unzipped and emptied a large pocket of her pants and a decent number of sauce sachets – at least 10 – spilled all over the floor, one bouncing off the accelerator.

"Tony!" Trina said, but with an I-should-have-known expression. "Whoa! So, you're going to have a little chips with your sauce, then?"

"Your hilarity astounds," said Tony sarcastically as she swiped a chip through the dollop of tomato sauce, creating a red streak on the paper. She popped the chip in her mouth as she said, "There's drink for anyone who doesn't scuba dive."

"Scuba dive?" repeated Hermione.

"Spit," Trina said. "Y'know, if some one backwashes after drinking you get their scuba divers floating around the bottle. Eww." She screwed up her face at the image she'd just created. Judging by the expressions of those in the back seat, they didn't sound partial to the idea either.

"Or you can go in there and buy your own," Tony said as she took a drink from the large Coca-Cola bottle, then lowering it appropriately so as not to 'scuba dive'. "I'm not made of cash – it was cheaper to buy this one big bottle than to get a small one each."

"So," surmised Draco, "you'd rather go for the unhygienic option for the sake of saving money, but at the cost of killing me with Meningitis since we don't have a Medi-witch on hand."

Tony pursed her lips and looked to the ceiling, as if thinking very hard, before brightly replying, "Yup, you got it."

Draco must have been getting used to Tony's characteristic sarcastic statements – which were unnervingly like his own – so he ignored her and instead reached forward for a chip.

Ron already had his cheeks bulging with chips and sauce. "Where are we going after this?" he managed to get out.

"Well," Tony said as she scooped up as much tomato sauce as she could with the overladen chip, "I was talking to Ben about that-"

"Ben?" Trina raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"The cute guy in the Fish 'n' Chip store," Tony supplied.

"Ooh, where?" Trina said, swivelling in her seat to see into the shop window next to the car.

"Oh, it looks like he's gone behind that partition there…" Tony was saying, and Trina's face fell. "Oh…wait- yeah, there – see? That's Ben."

None of the others could see Trina's face, as it was now hard against the window with her hands placed either side of it, but they heard her appreciation in her voice. "_I_ should have bought the chips!"

"Yeah, I wish you had, too," said Tony, swallowing a couple of chips. "Because Lord knows how I love to be deprived of views like that. Right. Whatever…"

"Yeah, I know," Trina played along. "You should have called me. I would have done it."

"So anyway," Hermione interrupted. "You were saying? About Ben?"

Tony looked confused for a moment. "Well, that he looks really-"

"No, about what you were talking about with him! Where we are staying!"

"Oh right," Tony said, and the others could tell from her face that she found this a much less interesting topic of conversation. "He says there's a Backpackers just around the corner and up the road a bit – we can shack up there for the night." She gathered up a few stray bits of crispy batter and munched on them, before reaching for the Coke bottle again. "I can't wait to see what Monsieur Malfoy thinks of it."

Draco looked sceptical now. "Why…?"

"Well, Backpacker hostels are cheap for a reason…"

"You realise, don't you," Draco said conversationally, "that you're gonna feel a bit more than a tickle when I get my wand back."

 Following these words, there was a loud splutter from Tony, followed by hysteric coughing, while she tried to wipe off spilt Coca-Cola from her chin. She and Trina were swapping looks with each other, which the others were sure held some hidden meaning, as Trina was smiling at her condescendingly.

"What did I say?" Draco asked, confused.

"Nothing," Tony said, recovering herself. "Nothing at all."

Trina obligingly turned to him and said, "It's just that she has this thing-"

Tony gave another couple of loud coughs as if to clear her throat, but the cough sounded like a cleverly disguised, "Bon-Bon". 

"-uh, thing where she doesn't pay attention to what people are saying and thinks about other stuff. Stuff that makes her laugh sometimes."

Draco raised an eyebrow at the poor cover-up.

"Seriously, I do," Tony said to him, looking at him in the rear view mirror. "It drives Trina up the wall."

Ron had just gathered up the last of the chips, so Trina rolled up the paper and scrunched it into a tightly packed ball. "I'll just put this in that rubbish bin over there," she said, motioning to a point out the windscreen.

Her door opened and closed, and the car was silent in her wake. 

"What was so funny?" Draco pressed, as he flicked his head to get a white wave of hair out of his face – a gesture that was becoming something of a habit.

Tony stared resolutely ahead. "Nothing. I was laughing at nothing."

Draco must have known he'd get no more out of her, so he sat back against the back of the seat.

When Trina got back into the car, she looked around in surprise at the silence before a look of dawning comprehension came over her, and she giggled, but knew better than to start the topic up again. "So let's go to this Backpacker's place then. Cheap is good."

'Good' wasn't the word Harry would have used to describe the place, when they got there. He saw Tony thoroughly enjoying the look of utter disdain on Draco's face, but if he hadn't been so distracted with the pleasant thought that Malfoy was unhappy, he probably would have been of the same mind. The wallpaper was yellowed and peeling in places, old overstuffed sofas spotted about the lobby looked in need of repair, and cigarette smoke lazily drifted into the air from two guys sprawled across a couple of the sofas under a wall of various travel and sight-seeing brochures.

"You've got to be kidding," Draco said as he dropped his bags with a thud, and this time he received no condescending looks from the Gryffindor three – probably because they were thinking the same thing.

"You _do_ realise," said Tony in a voice that plainly said he obviously _didn't_ realise, "that our budget, which was intended to work for two people, now has to cover six?"

"Fine, don't mind me," said Draco flippantly, as he wrinkled his nose at his surroundings. (An action that Tony found utterly endearing, although she'd never say it.)

"Never do," she said cheerily and turned towards the counter.

"Not that you could expect much better," Trina said to them. "After all, these things aren't designed for long stays – just for travellers. And _they_ can't afford to be picky. Anyway, this isn't bad for twenty bucks a head. That's in New Zealand dollars of course – who knows what that would be in your weird economic system."

They watched Tony chatting to the rugged-looking man behind the counter before she turned back to them, pocketing a receipt.

"Right," she said, "We're on the second floor – two three-man rooms next to each other."

Trina headed toward the lift, laden with bags, followed by all the others except Tony, who was looking uneasy.

"I'll meet you up there," Tony said decidedly as she headed toward the stairs and started striding up them, taking two steps at a time, her bag bouncing as she went.

"Why doesn't she just take the lift?" asked Ron. "It would be easier for her to carry a bag that way."

"She hates them," explained Trina. "Not the actual _moving_ thing, but the starting and stopping. Her stomach gets left behind."

The button labelled '2' lit up as the lift reached that level, and as the doors slid open they could see Tony approaching them at a jog.

"If I hadn't been carrying this bag," she said, slightly out of breath, "I would have beat you for sure!"

"Yeah, ok," said Trina, and shifted one of the bags slung on her shoulders to get more comfortable. "Take us to the rooms already."

"Oh," Tony said, as if this was a new concept that hadn't occurred to her, "Right, they'll be this way."

She headed off down the corridor, her companions in tow. They stopped outside two doors numbered 27 and 28.

"It makes sense that we share a room with Hermione," said Tony to Trina. "Since there are three girls. The two boys will have to share with the snake."

Ron looked less than thrilled at this concept, and Draco looked about to retort to the putdown but Tony gave a quick laugh and a wink to him to let him know she was kidding. A moment after she'd done this, she realised it hadn't been a good idea – Trina had her eyebrows raised in silent questioning, and Tony shrugged to her and rolled her eyes as she waved them all into the first room. Again the Gryffindors and Draco had the distinct feeling they were missing something.

"Hermione, just dump your stuff anywhere – there's no parents or prefects here." Hermione had been glancing about the room for a place to deposit her things, but at this statement from Tony she put them neatly just inside the door.

"Here's the key to the room next door," Tony continued, holding a key with a green tag out to Harry, "go get all your stuff sorted." It seemed to Harry that Tony now seemed a bit lethargic and apathetic. He supposed it was all the driving – she must just be tired. He'd already established that those sorts of things didn't come gradually with Tony – she changed mood at minimum notice, and could go from being bouncy and cheerful to lazy and apathetic in the space of one minute.

"I'll go with them," Hermione was saying, and she headed out with Draco and Ron. The last thing Harry saw before he followed them were Tony and Trina looking at each other intently, the tension almost palpable. It looked like they were going to have another 'discussion' that ended with raised voices – Harry was intensely glad that all six people collectively weren't sharing a room.

When the door closed behind him with a soft click, Harry saw the room next door was a reflection of the room they'd just been in. He saw two bunks up against the far wall, and another bed on the opposite side. Underneath a window in between sat a fat desk, with drawers that didn't quite shut due to moisture swelling the wood inside.

"Not the best place I've stayed in, that's for sure," said Ron, and Harry noted that Draco didn't make any comment about Ron Weasley's low standard of living resulting from their lack of wealth. Surprisingly, he hadn't said anything, but just crossed to the stand-alone bed and sat, gazing around with disdain.

"It's only for one night," Hermione said. "Besides, they didn't have to do this for us anyway. We're really greatly indebted-"

"Yeah," said Harry, but in an almost sarcastic tone, so she couldn't tell whether or not he actually agreed. "I love how they're moving along at their own sweet pace, while people back home will be worried sick, or think we're dead! It's great how they're prioritising the important things in life – like watching water fountains and movies…and now they're about to have another domestic!"

"Harry…" consoled Hermione, but couldn't think of just what to say to justify the two other girls against what Harry had just said.

"Domestic?" Ron was looking at him quizzically.

"They looked they were going to have a go at each other."

"Why?"

"Who knows?" said Harry, wearily dropping onto the bottom bunk. "Even though they're obviously best friends, I don't think constantly being around each other is good for them."

"Well anyway," Hermione said, "Taupo is about halfway to Auckland – they said that at some stage during the trip – so we're not doing too badly. And once we're in Auckland, we'll take a plane to England." 

The boys seemed a little less sombre at this reminder. Draco even seemed to have forgotten he hated the Gryffindors as he said, "Well that's a thought to keep me sane."

"You and me both," said Ron, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he looked horrified that he had uttered them.

"There's obviously a Concealment Charm over us if no one has come to find us," surmised Harry. "So either we're on our own or…"

"Or what, Harry?" asked Hermione, beginning to look worried.

Harry looked at Draco, aware that he'd never discussed the matter of his scar in his hearing, but deciding it not to make much difference as the whole school knew _something_ was up with the lightning-shaped brand, he continued, "My scar hasn't hurt for ages – why would Voldemort-" Draco subtly raised a shapely eyebrow at Harry's blatant use of the name, "-not be angry when he can't find us because of a charm? Unless…"

"…he's already got a plan to kill us all and use our insides for tinsel!" finished Ron.

"That's not quite how I was going to put it."

"Maybe your scar's just not sensing his moods anymore, Harry," suggested Hermione. "I mean, maybe there's a spell to block that as well."

Harry shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I don't feel cut off from him… I just think he's still biding his time for something."

"That can't be good," said Ron. As if looking for an explanation, he glanced over to Draco, who was passing the time by blowing wisps of white hair from his face while idly listening to the discussion.

At the pause in the voices, he looked at them, and seeing unsure inquisitive faces looking back at him, he sparked heatedly, "What're you all looking at _me_ for?"

"Well, you would know, wouldn't you?" said Ron. "I mean, if you- ow!"

Hermione had given him a sharp poke in the ribs with her elbow, and she muttered something about 'the talk about stuff'.

Ron didn't finish what he was saying, but glowered at Draco as he rubbed his sore ribs.

Draco stood from the bed. "Listen Weasley," he said, and his tone was impatient," in case it's been beyond the limited scope of your mind to notice, I'm in the same predicament as you! Alright? Do you see owls coming through the windows with messages for me from You-Know-Who, telling me all his plans? Do you?!"

"Stop it, please, all of you," said Hermione, as she saw Ron about to retaliate. "This isn't helping anyone."

"Are you sure?" Draco asked sarcastically. "Weasel seems to be getting a good vent out of it! Don't bottle it all up inside, Weasley, the tension could cause lasting physical damage."

Of course, this only served to incense Ron further.

"Why, you-!"

"Stop it!"

The sheer simmering fury under these words shocked the two arguing boys into silence. Even Hermione looked surprised, and they turned to face the angry speaker.

Harry was standing again now, and looked as irate as they had seen him so far since their placement in New Zealand, and they were further shocked to see him looking as angrily at his friend as he was at Draco. Ron looked incredulous and hurt at this.

"Harry," he began, "he-"

"I mean it, Ron," Harry said warningly, and Ron shut his mouth – although it was clear he thought Harry was being unreasonable. "Don't you think," Harry continued, "that Voldemort would have thought of this?"

All he received were confused looks. 

"_This_," he repeated, as though saying it again would make it all understandable. "He must know Malfoy is with us, and he knows what connections Malfoy has and how we'd associate them with him. He could be counting on us having a serious sparring, and it could drive us apart, making us more vulnerable to whatever he has planned!"

"By 'us'," Draco said plainly, "you mean you_,_ don't you?" 

Harry looked at him in speechlessness. "What?"

"The only person You-Know-Who is interested in is you." His face look on a rather sour countenance as he added, "it's always been you."

"I didn't realise you were so envious," said Harry with something frighteningly like a sneer. "You're welcome to the fame – taking Polyjuice on the hour would do the trick nicely."

Draco mumbled something incoherent as he flicked his head to move a white wave aside – Harry daren't believe he'd actually heard 'sorry' come out of Draco's mouth, but he wasn't about to ask for affirmation of the fact. Even if the blonde _had_ said sorry, it would have undoubtedly been sarcastic, he figured.

"How long do you think it will take us to get to Auckland?" Draco said to no one in particular, and in a tone as if nothing had just happened.

"Tony wouldn't make us wait another week – would she?" Hermione looked uncertain.

Draco shrugged. "What Tony wants, Tony gets, I think." Despite the fact these words were obviously intended to be impatient, there was a slight air of admiration or respect to his voice.

Harry fell again onto his bunk. "Unless Trina says otherwise. Despite Tony being the Rule Declarer, in the end, it's Trina who calls the shots. I mean, the way I've seen it, Tony only does things if Trina doesn't mind."

Ron, who was obviously still sore over Harry's censure of him, merely noisily climbed the ladder to the top bunk, and flopped himself loudly onto the flimsy blankets.

"Ok," Draco said, musing. "So…all we have to do is convince Trina we need a hurry-up?"

"Maybe," Harry said. "But we'll leave it for a bit, eh? I mean, this is technically our first day-" His eyes fell onto a cheap digital clock that stated the time to be almost 1am, "-ok, our second, and we're already halfway to Auckland, apparently. Let it sit for a bit."

"Should we ask them what time they plan to leave, tomorrow?" Draco queried, as he casually leaned back against the wall, pulling one foot up onto his mattress.

"I suppose so," Hermione said as she headed toward their door, reaching out a hand to open it. "I mean, it can't hurt."

As the door opened, remnants of conversation from the other room trickled though to them. Hermione stood back from the door a little, as if she were guilty about hearing them. Harry heard his name mentioned, and intrigued, he stood from his bunk and crossed the room to peer out the door.

The girls' door had been pushed so it was mostly shut, but the chink of space remaining was sufficient for their conversation to travel to others, now that the boys had their door open to unwittingly receive it. They heard small snippets of the heated exchange next door.

"…dragging them along…"

"…but they don't…"

"…how do we know you're not just holding back…"

"…why would…"

Harry looked uneasily at his fellow visitors and raised his eyebrows in silent speculation. All he received were unknowing shrugs, and they leaned slightly out into the hallway to hear more clearly.

"…yeah, well, you're not in a hurry to let him go though, are you?!" Harry identified that voice as Trina's. "Planning to take as long as possible?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Harry heard Tony retort. "You said it yourself – he's-"

"You don't care what I think about it! Let it go! Get over it!"

"There's nothing to-"

"If you won't listen to _me,_ then listen to _reason_ – he doesn't like you!"

Harry realised the conversation pertained to something he probably shouldn't be listening to – it sounded like they were feuding over some personal history. He slowly began to back into his room again. But just before he closed the door he caught some words that made him freeze the action.

"…him, a Slytherin no less…"

Now Draco looked particularly interested, as the conversation almost certainly concerned him, and he left his seat on the bed to come up behind Harry, straining to hear the conversation. 

"…not just me!"

"…what's that supposed to…"

Draco leaned past Harry to push the door open a little wider.

"…you want yours to go no more than I want mine to…" the eavesdroppers strained forward a little to hear. "…you and your precious _Bon-Bon…!_"

Harry turned his head to see Draco looking adequately confused. If Harry recalled correctly, the Malfoys were of a French heritage – somewhere way back down the line – and it wouldn't have shocked him to know that Draco was fluent in their language. It seemed just the sort of 'refined' thing their family would hold important. But judging from his expression, the term 'bon-bon' seemed inappropriately placed in the conversation. Meanwhile, the voices in the girls' room were becoming angry.

"…just like Draco – no wonder you like him…"

"…I'm not…"

"…dare you to tell them…go on…tell them…"

Draco was sufficiently taken aback so as to stand back a little, where he appeared to be replaying the words in his head in order to come to some understanding. Although he looked to be in shocked surprise, a grin ticked at the edge of his mouth at the flattery.

"Oh, yeah, I bet you love that, don't you, Malfoy?" Ron said acidly from the top bunk.

"Well, I don't see you getting-" Draco stopped suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him. His eyes diverged as he gazed ahead in remembrance, before snapping his focus back to Ron. Comprehension crossed his eyes in a dawning light, and the Gryffindors were shocked to see Malfoy do the un-Slytherin thing of clapping his hands over his mouth and dissolving in…_giggles?!_

"What?" Harry was asking, but Draco appeared to be having too much trouble keeping his laughter quiet. As if suddenly inspired by an idea, he headed for their door and wrenched it fully open, before hurrying out into the hall toward the girls' door. Harry, Ron and Hermione followed him – the voices growing louder as they approached.

"But if they know that-"

"So? It's the truth isn't it?! Go on-" Draco had pushed open their door before Trina could halt the rest of her sentence. "-tell them that it's _your fault they're here!_"

~~

The Weasleys hadn't been looking forward to Monday night, and the expression of disdain on Professor Snape's face when he appeared had done nothing to reassure them. The children were seated at the dining table, whereas Snape preferred to stand the whole time – presumably to empress his authority, or something equally petty. He had dispensed the homework from Hogwart's other teachers to them with the air of a child who had been sent on a trivial errand, before moving onto their potions lesson.

"You have half an hour to create this potion," Snape was saying. "Unfortunately, I cannot get you to make the potion the class did today because Longbottom again displayed his incompetence and so wasted the remaining ingredients when he spilled his potion all over them. Although," Snape added with a wry smile, "it was a small consolation to see his face erupt in the resulting purple boils."

"He _would_ think so," Fred muttered out the corner of his mouth to George, while staring almost venomously at Snape.

"The Contego potion," Snape said a little louder, deliberately ignoring Fred's mutter, "will not make itself – your allocated half hour runs short." He gestured to the list of ingredients written on a conjured blackboard, prompting his class of three, who turned back the cauldrons that the professor had supplied.

Ginny wasn't sure if her potion was _supposed_ to be spitting with angry red tongues of flame. Her brothers both had potions of gently simmering blue.

"It is beyond me what that potion is supposed to be, Miss Weasley," came the condescending voice of Professor Snape. "But it is clearly not the Contego potion. Rather than a guard against deceptive influence, it looks like something created to do nothing but inflict needless damage." With a swipe of his wand, the contents of Ginny's cauldron disappeared. "Next time, it would be more prudent to use the diced bat spleen as instructed."

Ginny groaned inwardly. She'd forgotten the bat spleen. She frowned in frustration. _Why am I expected to do the same thing as them,_ she wondered angrily, frowning toward her brothers. _They're three years ahead of me._

With her failed cauldron gone, and so with nothing more to do in the 'class', Ginny had time to muse quietly and try to think of some answers to the questions milling about her head.

"Well, we did ours wrong, too," George said by way of consolation to his sister, when Snape had left with the reassurance he would be back tomorrow. "Apparently they weren't supposed to get little bubbles in the middle."

"Now, dears," said Mrs Weasley. "It's good that the Professor is coming in to teach you – it's best to make the most of the situation, however unpleasant it is."

Ginny pushed back her chair and trod noisily up the stairs to her room, her brow furrowed in thought.

It didn't take long for her bedroom door to open again once she'd gone through it, and Fred and George appeared – she knew they would.

"What was that about?" Fred queried. "You looked like you were contemplating the universe."

"Something weird is going on," Ginny surmised as she clambered onto her bed to sit. "I'm a fourth year, you're a seventh – and yet we get assigned the same things."

"That's weird?" George said, a relieved grin spilling across his face. "I figure it's just lazy. Snape didn't want to come here in the first place, let alone teach two lessons simultaneously."

"But McGonagall and the other teachers – who still only teach at Hogwarts – wouldn't assign the same thing just out of laziness, would they?"

"We have the same-?"

"Transfigure a chair into a water fountain?"

George consulted the homework assignments still clutched in his hand. "Well, blimey, so she has. It could have been a mistake though, right?"

"McGonagall?" said Fred. "Not likely."

"And why are they different lessons?" Ginny asked as if talking to herself.

"How do you know they are?" said Fred. "I mean, Snape did admit the potion was different, but that was just because-"

"Do you really think he would leave all the ingredients in his supply – which would be much more than the class would need – out on his desk? And also, Neville sits near the back of the class – I've heard Parvarti talk about his potion accidents sometimes and she said so. Even if Snape, for some silly reason, _did_ have his very last available potion ingredients of the lesson on his desk, Neville could never have been able to spill anything on it!"

The twins just looked blinkingly at their sister. These new and astute observations didn't answer any of the questions in their mind…only created a whole lot more.


	14. Christmas Puddin' and Kings

_A/N: Alright, I wrote and posted this chapter all in one day, so I now have a headache and I can feel my eyeballs curdling. What do I get as compensation? I'll settle for copious elaborate reviews… but first I'll go to bed early and feel sorry for myself._

_Also, let it be known that Trina would like to express her disgust at the fact that in the previous chapter I got to buy the chips from "the cute guy", and she was left to explain backwash. There, Trina, I said it – Now if you have nothing more to say, close mouth now, or forever lie in pieces._

****

**Chapter 14: Christmas Puddin' and Kings**

The Great Hall was lit with the usual, in the way of candles lightly bobbing in mid-air and un-natural light coming from nowhere in particular. The difference that first would have stood out to someone who knew the norm was the condition of the students. Jovial conversation no longer domineered the tables – instead they were cloaked in nervous and apprehensive whispers, and small sneaking curious glances were sent up to the staff table. The majority of the staff seemed none too pleased either – Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey muttered to each other in low tones, McGonagall was tight-lipped as she looked resolutely down to her plate, and Professor Snape's expression was, as always, unreadable – it was the general consensus now that his sour look was a natural state, after all.

Overlooking the Great Hall and its dining students sat the reason for the gathering's discomfort. Where Dumbledore would otherwise have sat, gazing down in all his serenity, another younger, harder face sat. His formal superior glance over the room had the air of someone who was the very embodiment of a cold hard winter. When he slowly stood to address the room following dessert, the students fell into a palpable nervous silence.

"Now that you are all sufficiently filled and therefore more likely to pay attention," Lucius Malfoy started, "let me state a few notices to you all. And _I_ expect you all to listen – Albus Dumbledore always was too lenient in allowing disrespectful behaviour."

Professor McGonagall looked like she was trying extremely hard not to hex Lucius Malfoy with erupting incurable facial pus.

"You should find that, at this stage," continued Lucius, "the change in staff of this school will not reflect in…" here he paused as if trying to think of an appropriate term, "…_many_ changes in its curriculum or its rules – merely, the rules that are already in place will be more strictly enforced. I – with Ministry backing, naturally – have seen fit to appoint you with a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Although the instruction of Professor McGonagall may have been adequate, even with her need to maintain her other class also, I'm afraid she is not so…_qualified_, for the job, as the person I have now appointed. Indeed, I fail to see why Dumbledore had not done this earlier. Professor Snape will now teach Defence Against the Dark Arts."

A shocked murmuring broke out amongst the students at these words. Snape made Potions class notoriously nasty, but now it sounded like there were to be two classes with this effect.

"I do not feel that it would be prudent to expect him to also maintain his Potions classes," Lucius said, "so although he will be the official teacher of the class, he will be aided in these by a Hogwarts graduate particularly gifted in the area of Potions – Brian Zambini."

Blaise Zambini, a Slytherin fifth-year, sunk down a little under the surprised inquisitive stares of surrounding students. If he had known of his older sibling's new Hogwarts employment, he had apparently not told his housemates about it.

"And if my fellow staff members have nothing more to add," Lucius concluded with an air clearly saying that they weren't being invited to speak at all, "you may all quietly make your way back to your dormitories. There will be no loitering in the halls or venturing outside – if you are found doing this, it will result in detention. That is all," he finished loftily, before sitting down again.

There was a hesitant rustling as the students shifted, obviously unsure if energetic movement under the haughty eye of Lucius Malfoy would gain them a detention. The new headmaster however seemed uninterested in the students now, opting instead to mutter into the ear of Professor Snape – who had been relocated to sit on Lucius' left – so after a few moments the students bustled out of the Great Hall as quickly as they dared.

As Neville Longbottom – a Gryffindor 5th year – clambered into bed later than night, his dorm mates Dean and Seamus still down in the Gryffindor Common Room, it struck him just how lonely the room felt without the lively conversation of Harry and Ron. Usually the room would be filled with the day's injustices involving Snape, and Divination nonsense. But now it only held a deathly silence, the dulled voices of those remaining downstairs drifted up to him as if from a distant world. He held his old worn blue and red stuffed fish to him, instinctively. He didn't like people to know he still cuddled a stuffed toy sometimes – after all, most 15-year-old boys leave that sort of thing in their early childhood – but this fish had been a gift to him from his parents when he was small, so he still kept it. One of its eyes had long since been lost, leaving a lone stray strand of string hanging from its head. One of the fins had obviously come off and been clumsily sewn back on a couple of times. 

Heavy footsteps stomping up the stairs to his dormitory gave him plenty of warning to hide the fish under the covers, before Dean and Seamus loudly came through the door and made their way over to their beds.

"Hey there, Nev," Seamus said conversationally in his friendly Irish accent, but his voice was unusually sombre.

"We were just talking about the upcoming Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff," added Dean. "We have no way of knowing how well Gryffindor will do now that we've lost both our beaters and now two seekers!"

"Well, we'll have to get some good replacements in the tryouts this week, otherwise we'll have to forfeit!" Seamus exclaimed in horror.

"I hear that that fourth year, Rhys Castle, is trying out for the Seeker," Dean said. "Personally, I think he'd make a better beater – he has the look for it."

Neville watched their relayed conversation in silence for a few minutes before interjecting, "Do you suppose they'll only be a temporary replacement?"

Dean and Seamus stilled for a moment, before resuming their bedtime routines.

"I expect so," said Seamus, with false bravado. 

"I mean," supplied Dean, "surely Dumbledore will bring Harry back soon, and hopefully the Weasleys will then be allowed back in so we'll get our beaters back."

"Yeah," said Seamus, and he clambered under his covers, still leaving his bed hangings open so he could see Dean and Neville. "What do you think about the other formidable change to Hogwarts?"

"Lucius Malfoy?" Neville questioned rhetorically, and his voice shook a little.

"Forget Quidditch tryouts," Dean said sourly as he too climbed into bed. "We may as well hand over the House Cup to Slytherin now, and get it over with."

"And we thought _Snape_ was bad," commented Seamus. "I reckon we're about to see a whole lot worse."

"All he's done so far though is make Snape our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher," Neville said quietly. "I wonder why he did that… I mean, Dumbledore had never given him the job, and why would Lucius want him teaching it?"

"Three guesses, Nev," Seamus said bitterly. "With Lucius in charge, I reckon we've become You-Know-Who's playground."

However lightly Seamus may have meant this statement, the ominous tone suggested that perhaps it wasn't only Harry who was seriously endangered.

~~

Harry wasn't sure how it happened, but in their shock at hearing this surprise revelation from Trina, he, Ron, Hermione and Draco had somehow made their way back into the room they'd come from, and he was relieved that neither Tony or Trina had pursued them.

_'…tell them it's your fault they're here…' _– the words still echoed around Harry's head in terrible repetition.

"Harry…" Ron managed to get out between almost hyperventilating squeaky breaths, but the rest of the sentence was unfinished.

Hermione too looked quite startled, and Harry could almost see the workings in her head steaming, as she was trying to process what they'd just heard and come up with plausible explanations.

Draco looked nothing short of stunned, and beyond his superficial panic Harry shared this emotion. After all, neither of the girls had seemed malicious – it had been rather easy to trust that they were on Harry's side. Despite Tony's occasional similarities to Draco Malfoy, she had never seemed the type to betray them…

A seething self-hatred began to brew in Harry. Why did he take for granted they would help? After all, Harry and his friends – and Draco – had turned up in the middle of the night on the doorstep of strangers… why would he believe it to be genuine when the girls offered to bring them immediately back home at their own cost? He should have known…

"You don't suppose they work for- for You-Know-Who, do you?" stammered Ron, who seemed to have somewhat found his voice again.

Harry thought this concept strange, but he couldn't think of any other explanation. One look at Hermione told him that she couldn't either.

"Well they haven't done anything particularly threatening to us so far," Hermione reasoned. "Perhaps they're not dangerous."

"Then why did they go to such efforts to keep it a secret that it was them – or Tony – that brought us here in the first place?" Ron said, heatedly. "They can't be taking us home! Not when they could have just left us there!"

"Surely they don't work for Voldemort," said Harry quietly, as if trying to convince himself.

"And before you accuse me of anything," Draco added, "I'm as surprised as you about this. Although, I can think of a reason why they _won't_ be working for You-Know-Who."

Harry's focus snapped to Draco. "Why?"

Draco looked at him as if Harry had just questioned the most obvious thing in the world. "They're _muggles_, Potter. You-Know-Who would kill them as soon as look at them. He certainly wouldn't initiate them as Death Eaters!"

"We don't really know for sure if they're muggles," Hermione justified. 

Ron was indignant. "Have you seen them practice any form of magic, Hermione?"

"They could be _squibs_," Hermione defended herself. "They're not necessarily totally ignorant of the magical world. They've read our published story apparently, and would know the things that were mentioned in those, but if they're squibs they would know a lot _more_ – things that maybe gave them a reason to part you, Harry, from Dumbledore and the other witches and wizards who protect you."

This theory was particularly unnerving to the boys.

"I should talk to them, then," surmised Harry. "If it was just a mistake, they should tell me readily, or otherwise they'll say something to give away their standing."

"Or they could just decide you're too close to knowing the truth, and set up other people to hex you into oblivion," Ron declared. "Or just kill you in a painful muggle way."

Hermione's face has still been tensed pensively. Now she spoke, "Then, I think there's just one of us who can talk to them." The room fell silent as they waited for her to continue. "Malfoy," she said, turning to him, and the Slytherin leaned his head back exasperatedly against the wall, "oh, stop looking at me like that – I'm not saying you're working for You-Know-Who! But even you can't deny that you'd be more likely to be on his side than any of us. At least if you went in to talk to them, you'd have a much better chance of emerging unscathed than if Harry, Ron or I went."

"Plus," Ron added sourly, "Tony would be much less likely to kill the person she _likes_." It looked that since learning this fact of Tony's partiality, Ron's opinion of her had decreased dramatically.

Draco looked as though he would have dearly loved to say something to argue this theory, but Hermione appeared to be right – he couldn't deny he was the most appropriate candidate, considering their reasoning.

"Oh, fine," he said exasperatedly, and he huffily got up from his seat on the bed, indignantly flicking his white hair from his face. When he reached the door he looked back over his shoulder to see the others readying to follow close behind him, presumably to listen to the upcoming conversation. "All of you stay here," Draco commanded. "I'm not talking to a couple of maybe-murderers with three Gryffindors breathing over my shoulder. It doesn't do much to inspire confidence."

To be sure that they still weren't going to follow him into the hallway, he shut his door behind him. A few paces brought him to the door they had left in such a confused panic a few minutes ago. It wasn't completely closed – Draco could make out a thin sliver of wall past the door – but he didn't feel great about just pushing it open and marching on in. Especially since he now no longer knew where Tony and Trina stood. He raised his fist to knock, but then lowered it. Somehow knocking seemed unnecessary now. It would just be one more thing to make the situation more strained, and anyway, they'd know Harry or one of other others would soon come to ask questions. Draco listened intently for any more conversation snippets going on inside the room, or noise of any activity. There was none. Surely they wouldn't have gone to sleep already… no, the room's light was still on, after all. And they must still be in there – they wouldn't leave their room in a backpacker's hostel lit and unlocked.

Taking a big quivering breath, he slowly pushed the door open. Tony and Trina certainly didn't look dangerous at this time – or at least, not about to kill anybody, anyway. Tony was sitting on the bottom bunk looking positively dejected. At Draco's entrance, she groaned quietly and put her face in her hands. Trina was sitting on the bed opposite her, looking slightly regretful, but more apathetic – as if the worst had already been done, so there was no point in worrying about how the others could take it. 

Draco didn't know what to say – he hadn't planned beyond just opening the door – so for a while they all sat in heavy silence, before Tony's muffled voice came beyond her hands, "That wasn't how I would have chosen for you to have found out."

Obviously she wasn't talking about the newly discovered 'crushes'. Although that would normally have been the choice for conversation, it had since been far surpassed by the more disturbing confession.

"So…" Draco started hesitantly, "what was it exactly that we were meant to have found out? How is it your fault?"

"It was my computer-" began Tony.

"Your what?" 

"On the Internet-"

"The what?"

"Oh, this is stupid!" she exclaimed, lowering her hands. "_They_ sent you in here, didn't they, because they all figure that you'd be least likely to be done in by someone on the 'dark' side!"

"Well," Draco justified with a small shrug, "it _does_ make sense."

"It's not very practical, considering you don't know what we're talking about!"

"Don't snap at _me_! I didn't have a choice! I was just sent in here!"

"We'll have to talk to you _all_," Trina interjected loudly. "We'll come in to explain it as best we can. You've obviously all jumped to the most stupid conclusion known to man."

Draco frowned as Tony herded him out of the room in front of her. "You have to walk in first," she muttered to him. "Knowing them and their paranoia, they'd think we're in there to kill them, otherwise."

As soon as the door opened and Draco walked through it, the interrogation started.

"What did-?"

However, when they saw that the Slytherin was closely followed by Tony and Trina, all speech was cut off, and the youths remained rigid in their seats. Draco crossed over to the bed and resumed his seat against the wall.

"Look," Trina said, holding her hands up. "No weapons of mass destruction in sight."

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked over at Tony, but she just rolled her eyes at them. "Look," she started, "I can imagine why you freaked out over…what you heard, but there's really no need to be so skittish. Now, I did try to explain to Draco, but since he didn't understand a _word_ I was saying-"

"Only the muggle parts!" Draco interrupted defensively.

"-we've come in here to tell you all. I don't expect Ron to understand much either, but hopefully you two will," Trina finished, motioning to Harry and Hermione.

She looked at Tony, and it was obviously her cue to speak. Tony crossed the room to sit on the desk under the window, and she looked down at her slightly swinging feet for a while, apparently gathering her thoughts.

"Do you remember my computer?" she said to no one in particular. "When you first came to my room, it was the apparatus I refused to leave in there with you."

"She's just very protective of it," Trina said.

"Yes, I remember it," said Harry, matter-of-factly, still looking wary.

"Well," Tony continued, "I'd been using it shortly before you all showed up. I was surfing Internet sites on it-" (by this stage Draco and Ron's eyes had a rather glazed uncomprehending look to them) "-and I came across a rather odd one. It said some rubbish about clicking a…thing, to make all your doubts proved wrong or something…"

"It said, 'if you have the faith to voice the impossible and then click this icon here, the aforementioned impossibility will show itself as a concealed reality'," Trina spoke up, and Tony looked at her, impressed that she remembered it down to the last word. "And of course at that stage, we thought the world of Harry Potter was nothing more than a story – it wasn't real, to us."

"So we thought we'd try it, just to see what _really_ happened," Tony continued. "We guessed either nothing at all would, or we'd get a subscription form to some mystical money-hungry site."

"But her computer just turned itself off, and then you guys came."

Harry and Hermione clearly didn't know what to make of this, or even to believe them. It did sound awfully far-fetched.

"Why would we have deliberately taken you from Hogwarts?!" Trina asked, exasperated. "We don't have money to burn! It's not like we were just running out of ways to spend it so we decided 'hey, we'll bring some people over from the other side of the world just so we can spend money taking them back!'"

"Forgetting about the money thing, then," Harry said, "how could a computer bring us over? It's just not possible. How does your story explain that?"

Tony looked up with an expression of relief, perhaps now because her explanations had been cut mercifully short, since Harry had picked up on a crucial point. "Exactly!" she said. "It couldn't! Although I was panicking myself stupid initially, I've realised that it couldn't have been the actual site that brought you over – it had to have been whoever was _behind_ it! And since Trina and I are only muggles – _not squibs_, as I'm sure you'd speculated – we couldn't have actively done it. So whoever put that site there was obviously the one who's responsible for this. If I hadn't clicked the…thing – icon, then there would have been another way that you came over here. I just didn't want to tell you this early on because it would invoke an all-out panic, and I didn't want you all wary of us before you even got a chance to see we're not creepy people."

Tony took a big breath after her long spiel, and looked at Harry carefully to see if he understood this.

"So we weren't pulled here toward someone bad at this end," said Ron, mulling over the words in his effort to comprehend, "but were pushed by someone back home?"

"Something like that," Hermione said. "That's what it sounds like. But why? Considering we haven't been approached by anyone magical, bad or otherwise, it could possibly have been a mistake that we ended up here."

"Not that my opinion is worth anything to you right now," Tony said, "but I think that site was a means of doing just this – invoking a panic so you'd turn against us, do something stupid, and make it easier for Mouldywart to win."

"Voldemort," Harry corrected.

"Whatever."

The room again fell into an uncomfortable silence, and the two host girls could tell that their story hadn't wholly been accepted yet.

"It's 1:30 in the morning," Trina said conclusively, and her voice was tired – tired of the confusion and the conflict. "Do what you want; I'm practically beyond caring. Go to bed, go to sleep, discuss this till it's ragged…do what you want. Tony and I are going, and hopefully in the morning you're feeling a little better."

She traipsed slowly out the door, Tony following.

~~

Naturally, considering recent events, sleep wouldn't have come easily to Trina and Tony, so instead of heading to their respective beds, they locked up the room and headed downstairs. Although the restaurant would have long since closed, the bar would still be serving, and the cybercafé was a 24/7 service.

Whatever sombre faces and demeanours they had had upstairs were coaxed away under the influence of several shots of made up of various drinks, courtesy of the friendly bartender and spare change in their wallet – then later change still in their bank account. They were the only ones up, which was hardly surprising considering the time, so they sat uninterrupted opposite each other at a polished square wooden table that had the occasional cigarette burn on its surface, and Tony had her feet up on one of the unoccupied chairs on either side of her. A jukebox played quietly in the background, and dim lights made for a cosy drinking setting. The bartender stood behind the counter at the end of the room. He was a young man – maybe 30 – with finger-combed brown hair and a relaxed phlegmatic expression.

"Life's not so bad," Trina said with a twitch of a smile. "All you need is a couple of shots to see the lighter side of life."

Tony held up one of the six empty shot glasses in front of them to a low-lit light ahead, and peered through it. "Looks rather dim to me. And yellow."

"We could put up a Christmas tree with fairylights, then life would be colourful too!"

Tony smiled, not drunkenly, but she could still feel the lulling comfort of intoxication waiting to make its presence known in the near future. "Now there's an idea. Let's get a tree!"

They both laughed uproariously. For all their differences, one of the few things they shared was their 'drunk fingerprint'. They both had the same characteristics develop when under the influence of alcohol. Rather than getting moody, or violent, or even slur when they spoke, they both got very affectionate – even with people they'd known for a matter of minutes – and they found everything funny. But then, what wasn't funny about a cigarette burn shaped like a circle?

When the laughter subsided, Tony brought her head down to look into an empty shot glass in front of her, as if she were looking through the lens of a microscope. "Do you think if I stared hard enough it would fill up again?"

"Let's try," said Trina with an enthusiastic laugh, and with an expression that plainly communicated she wasn't drunk enough to have been serious. Neither was Tony, but their character was often so wacky anyway that it got difficult to tell sometimes just how sober they were.

Trina looked to the bar to see the bartender looking attentive as he dried a glass. "Oh, shh!" she exclaimed to Tony in an extremely loud whisper easily governing the quiet room. "We don't want to be sent out – be _quiet_!" Much to Tony's amusement, this last word was near on a yell.

When Tony brought her feet down from the chair and turned to see the bartender too, she saw that his attention wasn't aimed at critiquing them, but at a quiet new entrant who had made his way into the room.

His clothing almost blended into the shadows of the room. Dark shoes, dark pants, and a dark grey cashmere sweater made him appear really quite elegant. It was only on a closer inspection, resulting from him crossing the room towards them, that they could see the flowing-platinum-haired picture of elegance was none other than Draco Malfoy.

He sat down on the chair that Tony had had her feet propped upon, so she instead swivelled slightly to lay them on the remaining empty chair.

"Hey, hot stuff," said Tony teasingly, flicking her eyebrows up at him once, and Draco looked a little uncomfortable before he realised she was doing it deliberately, to watch him squirm. "Whatcha doin' here?"

So he resolutely looked directly back at her and replied, "_Hi_. I didn't want to be up there with them, when all they can do is analyse every detail until it's quite dead, and accuse me of every illegal thing possible." He looked at Trina before dropping his gaze to the six empty shot glasses sitting on the table, which Trina was now trying to make a mini-tower out of the glass building blocks. "I see you've made yourself at home."

"A home of many Christmas Puddin's…" said Trina with a dreamy smile.

"That's the name of the shots," Tony explained to the confused Draco.

"So it's a Merry Christmas all year round!" Trina concluded happily.

"Hey there, girls," came a friendly voice from over Tony's shoulder, and she twisted to see the bartender behind them smiling amiably. "What'll your friend here have?" He turned his attention to Draco who was looking quite off-guard.

Tony, too, was surprised, and she looked as if she were about to say something about their 'friend here' being underage, despite the elegant attire and his height making him appear older. As if Trina read her mind and her intent, she gave a subtle urgent shake of her head to her friend, and turned to watch Draco's response.

"Uh…" he was saying, and Trina was relishing in the knowledge that Draco didn't have any idea of drinks in the Muggle world, and was therefore likely to be feeling very foolish. Draco recovered himself admirably well however, when he maintained his air of coolness and he gave a nonchalant wave of his hand, saying airily, "I'll have whatever they're having," as if it was really beneath him to worry about such things.

"Very wise," said Trina nodding, and looking at him as if to say what he'd just said wasn't a wise decision at all and he'd just condemned himself to death.

"Christmas Puddin's, I presume," said the bartender with a smile, and receiving affirmative nods he walked away to make up the order.

"What have I just asked for?" Draco said warily. "What are those things made of?"

"Uh," said Tony, her brow furrowed as she tried to come up with the answers. "It's three things. The top is Baileys, which gives it that nice creamy-looking top that you'll see. One of the under layers is something very dark, and the other, totally clear, ingredient is something that has a bigger kick than a ballet dancer on steroids. It must be 150% alcohol at least! It really belts you at the back of the throat! It's not vodka though. We had these shots in Auckland once, and I put my finger in the glass when it just had the clear stuff in it, then licked my finger, and it just about knocked me for six!"

This explanation had clearly gone over Draco's head, and he warily watched the bartender setting down the three full shot glasses onto their table.

"Ok, you have to knock this back with us, Draco," Trina was instructing him. "It's fun. And it makes life happy."

Draco looked sceptical of this idea.

"Are you sure you don't have your wand with you?" Tony asked him. "Because I think I know where you're keeping it!"

Trina laughed heartily and again coaxed Draco to take the shot. "C'mon, you've _got_ it, and that's more than-" she lowered her voice so the bartender wouldn't overhear, "-more than most 15-year-olds could say."

Tony was now looking at him with amused condescension, and that was the last straw for Draco. He was not going to be looked at as if he were childish or too good to have a bit of alcohol! He determinedly picked up his shot glass, and Trina counted them all down.

"3…2…1!"

They all took the rather large shots in one gulp, and Draco coughed a little, but maintained this to be because the drink started going down the wrong pipe.

The bartender, who they'd by now learned was called Matt, had obviously chatted with the girls enough beforehand to know that their eccentric behaviour was no drunken threat to the place, because he continued to give them a ready supply of Christmas Puddin's. Draco refused to back down before the girls did, so it wasn't long before he was joining in with the rowdy and rather intoxicated laughter.

"I want some smokes," Trina said in a whine, with a pout. Trina didn't generally smoke, but only when she drank.

"Well, 1) you don't have any," Tony listed, "2) It would cost a fair deal to buy some - considering you'd only use a few and not a whole box; 3) They're foul. Gross habit."

"You smoke when you drink too!" Trina retorted in the manner of a child trying to justify why she should be allowed lollies.

"Only when they're offered – my will-power works well enough for me not to ask for them, but I don't usually refuse them when they're offered. You wave them under my face and push them into my hands! But it's still a gross habit!"

"Hey, Draco," Trina said, turning her attention away from Tony, "what are wizard smokes like? Do they have colours? Or different flavours? Oh, you wizards have smokes that are healthy!"

Draco grinned in a stupor, who could no longer be bothered shaking his hair out of his eyes. "Uh, no. We have lotsha dif'rent kinds, but not healthy ones yet!"

Trina looked thoroughly disappointed.

Draco when drunk, it appeared, was not prone to the affection that characterised Tony and Trina, but he grew to be more chatty, approachable, and – unfortunately for him – unscrupulously honest.

"So, Draco," Trina said conversationally, bringing her chair closer to the corner of the table and draping a friendly affectionate arm over his shoulders, "why are you such an arse?"

Tony wasn't the only one who found Trina's directness extremely funny – Draco was also laughing; not offended at all, and in his current state didn't find anything amiss with having an arm draped across him in conversation.

"Why not?" he said, rhetorically.

"Hey, that's my line," Tony said with a smile. "But really, you have to have a reason. Why do you keep a spare wand up your arse? Or whatever it is that makes you a bitter and twisted old hag?"

Draco laughed again with his drinking companions, and replied between giggles, "Aside from being bitterly jealous of Potter and his popularity, I suppose it's just because I have to."

"Why?" queried Trina. "Oh! I know! You're under a hex where you self-destruct if you do something nice!"

All three heartily laughed again, and Draco said, "Close. Just coz… I guess… well, like anyone, I am parsha- parsh- _partial_, to getting what I want. And people expect me to, as well. And I can't disappoint, can I?" He fluttered his eyelashes innocently and leaned towards Tony, tipping his chair onto two legs. This gesture because less endearing and more hilarious when the chair unbalanced and slid out entirely from underneath him.

This was apparently the most funny thing to happen yet, and as Tony stumbled out of her own chair to help the grinning Slytherin up, she agreed, "No, a disappointing Draco is…well, disappointing."

This was apparently not a good thing to say, because no sooner had she uttered the not-so-poignant comment, she and Draco laughed so hard that trying to get up off the floor was quite pointless, and when Trina leaned down to look at them she too feel off her chair – although it was difficult to tell if this had been a genuine fall or if she had done it deliberately for the sake of joining in.

"Ok, now, you three," came the friendly but firm voice of Matt. "I think you've had enough of your Christmas Puddin' Cheer for tonight. How about you go back up to you rooms, now, eh?"

Trina looked up at the smiling bartender from the floor. "I like you, Matt. You're cool. You're a good guy."

"And _you're_ not fit for another drink," Matt replied, as he gently hoisted her up from the floor, where she swayed unsteadily on her feet – again, something that she found incredibly funny.

Because Tony and Draco had apparently both been trying to use each other to pull themselves up, this resulted in little more than just becoming a tangled mess on the floor, so Matt once again assisted his patrons to find their feet.

"Now, are you alright to get to your rooms by yourself?" Matt asked. "You could take the lift, if you're too dangerous on the stairs."

If Trina and I take the lift," Tony said, "we might puke in it. We hate those things when we're sober – I shudder to think what the horror of a thing would be like now."

"If you're sure," Matt said. "Just be careful going upstairs, eh? We don't want you to take a fall."

"Right," Tony assured him, "we'll be careful." They managed to stumble out of the bar by themselves and get to the bottom of the stairs when Trina leaned against the wall in little giggles as she said, "Did you see his pants? So not cool pants! Draco, you may be an arse but you have good pants…"

"C'mon," Tony coaxed and she tried to pull her friend back up. Tony always did have the tendency to easily overcome alcohol influence when she consciously tried – much like the way she could change moods in the space of a second, she could also leave the blatantly drunken state when she was bored of it, or if it was necessary. And the idea of falling down two flights of stairs definitely made at least some element of soberness necessary.

It was a gradual process – getting up those stairs without Trina stopping every few steps to recount the night's events. When they finally reached their rooms, and Draco looked to be opening his door and trying to walk through it at the same time, Tony was ushering Trina through the other, as Trina said more loudly than she should have, "Merry Christmas Puddin', every one…."

~~

"Ah, Severus," said Lucius Malfoy, who was perched pompously in the seat formerly occupied by Dumbledore in his office. An empty perch stood next to him, as Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, no longer wished to be present, and nor was he welcome.

"You did send for me, Lucius?" Severus Snape asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed," concurred the new headmaster, and he lowered the quill he had been holding. He motioned to one of the seats in front of his desk and after a moment's hesitation Snape sat.

"You have altered the curriculum of the Defence Against the Dark Arts, I assume," Snape started.

"Just a little," Lucius replied, with a small smirk tugging at side of his lips. "Not enough to arouse much suspicion, of course."

"What is it you've done?" questioned Snape, and then, worried that he'd sounded too concerned or accusing, added, "One would assume I need to know, in order to teach it."

"And naturally you would be an excellent teacher in the Dark Arts field," stated Lucius Malfoy. "Of course, I have not made a curriculum to teach false things, so there need be no fear of that, although I'm sure many of the children have already concluded I would do such things." The corner of his mouth ticked again, at this concept. "Undoubtedly, many of them have put their parents on guard as we speak. Indeed, any attempt to sabotage the teachings of safety against the Dark Arts would be immediately attacked by the Ministry, and would naturally be so dark in obvious intent that the school and it's management would be thoroughly interrogated. No, it would be foolish indeed to service our Lord that way. I have merely…rearranged priorities, shall we say."

Severus Snape's face remained impassive, as always. "A well-planned approach," he credited the idea. "And what of my Potions class?"

"I have no reservations that Brian Zambini will work at his utmost in the service of this school and of his former house," concluded Mr Malfoy.

Snape processed these words carefully in his mind to realise that Zambini, as a faithful ex-Slytherin, would be utilised in his full capacity to work in the way Lucius willed. Snape trusted that Lucius' faith in Brian Zambini's capabilities was not misplaced.

"He was always gifted in the field," Lucius said, by way of reassurance, "and I have no doubt he will handle your class very well, under your expert supervision of curriculum, of course."

"Certainly," concurred Snape. "When may we expect him?"

"Mr Zambini will be arriving shortly – I presume he is here already, in fact. I have given instruction that he be shown in here when his quarters have been settled."

Snape raised an eyebrow subtly in surprise. "And the length of his stay?"

"At this stage the life of his services to us remain unknown, Severus," said Lucius Malfoy. "It may be that the time should come when his teaching of the class is recognised as a more long-term commitment…should you be elevated to a new level of authority and rank, in offices not respected here. After all, my son is not the only one possessing a ripe opportunity to serve." Snape remained quiet. "Everything is working according to plan, Severus," said Lucius Malfoy, with a sadistic smile. "We should pride ourselves in the knowledge we may hold the key to our Lord's greatest victory thus far. And once Hogwarts is no longer impervious to his influence, the problem of Potter should be greatly diminished."

It was at this time that a tentative knock sounded, followed by one of more confidence.

Lucius looked at Snape with a knowing look of superiority as he called, 'Come in.'

This was undoubtedly Brian Zambini; Snape recognised him. Parts of his face remarkably resembled that of his younger brother, Blaise. They had the same messy dark hair – almost black, rather like Potter's, Snape realised with an inward smile of amusement. His eyes were of a dark brown, and his nose rather narrow. The set of his mouth and chin showed an authoritative determination that assured Snape his post was not being taken lightly, and the Potions class just may be in competent hands.

"Mr Zambini," Lucius said loftily, and motioned to the empty seat beside Snape. Brian took it.

Good Evening, Mr Malfoy," he said, and added with a bemused smile, as an afterthought, "_Headmaster._"

"Undoubtedly you remember Severus Snape, Zambini…" said Lucius, dipping his head to Snape.

"Professor Snape," Brian Zambini said by way of acknowledgement. "Rest assured I will devote my full efforts to maintaining your class to the standard you have kept it."

"I'm sure you will," said Snape, although he sounded a little reserved, as if unsure it was the truth.

"Severus," Lucius addressed the new Defence teacher, "Mr Zambini has been placed in the West tower next to the statue of Paul the Portentous. I will here discuss with him the implications and responsibilities of teaching your class, and the curriculum."

Snape recognised the obvious dismissal. He nodded assertively, and stood. He strode to the door and opened it, before turning back with a grim smile, "I await details of the…_curriculum,_ in the coming days. Good-day, Lucius."

With that he walked out the door and closed it behind him, leaving a very sadistically satisfied-looking Lucius Malfoy in his wake to discuss matters with the new Potions teacher.

Severus Snape has his own curriculum to write, in the shadows.

~~

The first thing Tony noticed was the violent morning light seeping through her lashes. The next thing she noticed was the headache that followed it. She groaned.

"Not feeling so great?" said Trina.

If Tony had been feeling normal, it would occurred to her to be incredibly surprised that Trina was up before her, but as it was, there was a more pressing matter on her mind. A thumping, aching, pressing matter. She felt decidedly unimpressed. In the past she had prided herself on the fact she didn't get hangovers following a night's drinking – merely a feeling of dehydration. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the light.

She was relieved to discover that with every passing second of consciousness her headache receded a little, until it was finally a dull ache in her right temple. Morning-itis, she concluded.

"Here, I know you'll want this to fix you up," Trina said, as she shoved something cold into Tony's hand.

Tony lifted the glass of cold water to her lips, and felt the relief as the soothing liquid waded down her throat. After the hydration top-up, she was satisfied to have the familiar drinking-consequence of only a slight aversion to bright light, and a lethargic demeanour. Which, in truth, she had every morning anyway.

She sat up to see Trina fully dressed (now the full surprise registered) and that Trina was the only other person in the room.

"Where's Hermione? Am I the last one up?" Tony didn't even _remember_ a time when she was the last person up.

"'Course Hermione's up – what else would you expect from someone like her? I expect she's downstairs with Harry. Ron's still snoring something terrible next door, apparently."

"And Draco?"

Trina smiled at this. "I'm guessing he's too zonked to care. Probably still in a comatose sleep."

Tony smiled as much as an early-morning attitude would allow her, and said, "It was an interesting night, last night, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't exactly clubbing," Trina said, "but yeah, it was fun."

"I wonder if Draco will remember much of it, or if he's one of those people who just have a blank slate of all the time they were trolleyed."

"I guess we'll see later," Trina said, sitting on her bed. "You realise we can't drive, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah," Tony said blearily, absently scratching her right forearm lazily as she noted Trina had refilled their water bottles too. "A sleep doesn't fix a drunk, and all that…"

"Yeah, 'all that'," said Trina. "Unless you're keen to relive the accident. And it sounded terrible to the others when we mentioned it on Marine Parade, and if you were as unlucky as I was, and actually remembered it, you wouldn't go near the idea of driving after just a sleep."

"Yeah, yeah, relax," said Tony, perhaps a little grumpily. "I hadn't suggested jumping behind the wheel to enact a Formula 1, did I?"

"No more alcohol, and we'll leave tonight," Trina concluded. "I'm going downstairs to check my e-mail." She briskly got up and left the room.

"Where did I get the stupid idea that my mother's spirit would stay at home…?" Tony muttered as she dragged herself out of bed to have a shower in the bathroom across the hall, and get dressed.

After dressing she picked up her water bottle in case she needed another drink later, and headed out her door, pulling it shut behind her and locking it with her key.

Just after the 'click' sounded from her door, a slightly rumpled-looking Ron emerged from the door next to her.

"Hey," said Tony, half in greeting, half in surprise. "I think Harry and Hermione are still downstairs in the lounge."

Ron grunted in response and rubbed his eyes. "Okay."

"Is Draco still in there?" Tony said as Ron started to turn away.

"Uh…" Ron looked as though any form of thought pained him. He obviously wasn't a morning person either. "Yeah, thankfully he's not up and ready to annoy us all. He came in as quietly as a rampaging hippogriff last night. Did you and Trina get him drunk?"

"Little bit," confessed Tony. "It was more Trina's idea, really, I was going to stop the bartender from serving him." This information didn't seem to improve the worsened opinion of Tony that Ron seemed to have developed since learning she liked the bane of his life.

Ron simply continued to head towards the lift.

Instead of following him down to the lounge, Tony gently pushed open the door to the boy's room.

"Hey, Drunken-Draco…?" she whispered as she entered.

A deep dissatisfied groan came from a bundle of blankets on the stand-alone bed. The room itself was still fairly dark – the curtains remained shut, so the only light was what was able to filter through them.

Tony squatted down on the floor alongside the groaning bundle, and gave it a poke. A disgruntled head appeared, and for a moment it was all Tony could do to keep from laughing at the sight of the usually-impeccably-tidy hair pillowed up all over his head.

"You did this to me," Draco grumbled past his tongue thick with dehydration. "Bad feeling...evil…"

"Here, drink some of this," Tony said, pulling folds of blanket away from his face and handing him her water bottle. "It'll make you feel better."

Draco apparently didn't take her word for it. After all, last time he'd drunk something at her recommendation, this was where it had brought him.

"I promise," urged Tony. "This doesn't have alcohol in it. It's just water. You'll feel better once you're hydrated. It's the muggle way of dealing with hangovers. This, and a good breakfast."

The bundle of blankets moved for a while before a pale hand found its way out and grasped the bottle of water. Draco accidentally got a few drops of water on his face before it got near to getting in his mouth, so Tony put her arm around the thick fluffy bundle and propped him up a bit.

"Sit up, that way you'll actually get a drink, rather than having to rely on osmosis to get you hydrated."

Draco, now appearing to be more able to cope with having his eyes open, clumsily sat up and drank. He'd had a good half a bottle before taking a breath.

"There," Tony said, satisfied. "I know that wouldn't have fixed it, considering you probably don't have the affinity with alcohol that Trina and I do, so your system would have a lot of work coping, but it would have helped."

Draco looked like he didn't know whether to be grateful for the drink, or to be indignant that Tony had implied he was an innocent non-drinking schoolboy. He settled for a Goyle-like grunt.

"Trina and I hired towels and other shower stuff last night," Tony saying, as she put something down on the floor next to his bed. "Here's some for you. The bathroom is directly across the hall. You'll need a shower to get rid of the booze-smell. Everyone else is showered and downstairs – well, Ron hasn't showered yet on account of the fact he'd probably drown if he tried in his current state – come down when you're ready."

She stood up and headed for the door. When she reached it, she turned back and questioned, "Do you happen to remember anything of last night?"

Draco merely rolled over.

Almost as soon as she reached the lounge she was called by a loud, "Tony!" coming from the cybercafé at its end. She made her way past various patrons and backpackers who were staring openly at her unusual hair colour, until she came alongside Trina, who was looking at her excitedly.

"What?"

"I have an email from Tonia!" Trina was saying excitedly. Antonia was her big sister, who lived in Auckland with her boyfriend, Gavin.

"I suppose she's insisting on seeing you before you head off overseas?" Tony said. "That'll make keeping the others under wraps rather difficult."

"They're not in Auckland right now," Trina said, rather tensely Tony thought, before continuing, "they're in the South Island, but Tonia wrote to say that we could stay in their flat instead of paying for accommodation up there which you know would be more expensive than saving a third world country."

"Really?" Tony said eagerly, leaning forward to see the computer screen. "That would be really good. A little cramped perhaps, or a lot cramped, but still, it'll be good to have the place to stay in."

"Shall we try and get there tonight?" Trina asked. "I mean, if we leave after tea today, and didn't make any stops on the way to Auckland – the others have already made it quite clear what they think of our casual sight-seeing – we'd get there about…midnight? Approximately. We could take turns driving, if you like. It would just be cheaper than having to fork out for another motel or something. Plus, the others are getting cranky."

"Ok, we'll try to do that," Tony agreed. "Well have tea here, and then pack up and leave."

"So we just have a day to kill here. I can take the others out somewhere if they get bored staying around here. Mind you, Hermione looked pretty comfortable just looking through the many brochures of New Zealand's attractions."

"Well, she would, wouldn't she?" Tony said as if this was obvious. "I mean, it's reading material, at any rate. She'd gravitate to it."

"You want to check your email? I have a quarter hour of time left that I don't need."

"Thanks," Tony said, and took Trina's seat at the computer. "I'll go onto TradeMe too – I need to see how the auctions for my computer and car are going. After all, we don't have much time left for me to get rid of those."

"Just don't let any of the others see any fan fiction sites on there. You know what sort of dodgy things get on those."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tony assured her. "We have enough expenses currently on our hands without having to worry about therapist bills."

With the question of Auckland accommodation solved, Tony found it a lot easier to relax, and she was determined to relieve some of her stress throughout the day. Perhaps she would lazily watch TV or play pool on one of the available tables. Whatever she did, she was resolved that for the day she would relinquish the role of Tour-Guide Babysitter.


	15. The Return

**Chapter 15: The Return**

Neville Longbottom had been dreading Potions class all day. He always did, really, but the prospect of being taught by someone with an unknown ability for being patronising was more than a little irksome. The fact that Brian Zambini was in Slytherin house while he had been a student of Hogwarts didn't give Neville any reassurance.

The only difference from the norm in the classroom, Neville noticed upon entering, was the lack of formidable presence of Professor Snape. That, and Blaise Zambini was slouching a little lower in his seat, as if he was under the impression this would make him unnoticeable.

Neville clutched his bag to his chest as he made his way to his seat – near a quiet corner at the back. He would have made it unperturbed if his path had not been interrupted with the sudden appearance of an oncoming student he hadn't seen soon enough to stop in time. The collision made Neville drop his bag, and several books spilled from out the top. The student with whom he'd collided – an unapologetic Slytherin, unsurprisingly – merely made his way to his desk with a smirk of amusement. Neville, embarrassed, crouched down and began to gather his books.

"Neville Longbottom, I can assume?"

The unfamiliar voice took him by surprise, and his resulting jump only served as further amusement for the Slytherins. Neville twisted around and looked up to see the unfamiliar face that undoubtedly belonged to their new Potions professor, Brian Zambini.

Neville didn't say a word – not for lack of trying, however; his mouth was doing what appeared to be an enactment of a croaking frog having an epileptic fit while under the _silencio_ curse.

"You may take your seat now, Longbottom," Brian Zambini continued with a grim smile of sadistic amusement. "Unless, of course, you find the floor a more preferable vantage point. There is, I suppose, not so far to fall from there."

Neville scrambled to his desk, a pink tinge gracing his face. He caught sight of Seamus ahead of him, who shrugged apologetically. At least Brian Zambini was apparently not as prone to deducting Gryffindor House Points as Professor Snape was.

The class was so used to Neville's frequent blunders by now, that his moment of humiliation was short-lived – the Slytherins had turned back to face the front of the classroom, and Neville was no longer under many cruel amused eyes. Now he was able to observe quietly from his seat. That's why he liked to sit at the back – he could see all the other students and what they were doing. He liked it better that way. The Slytherins, Neville noticed, were generally quieter without the presence of Draco Malfoy among them. Blaise Zambini had his head tucked down giving great concentration to taking out his ink and parchment (although Neville suspected he'd have been like this anyway, simply because his brother was teaching the class), and Pansy Parkinson's nose seemed to have found it's place in its own business for a change. Without Draco to initiate a mockery in class, Pansy was a rather inactive boring person.

After taking out his pot of ink, a roll of parchment and his quill, Neville had the opportunity to study their new professor for the first time. Zambini didn't share the mono-coloured dress code that characterised Snape – he wasn't slathered in black from top to toe – but his attire was still dark. His outer robes were black, the back falling fluidly from his shoulders, moving like an ominous cape when he moved. A light grey jersey could be seen underneath this – its colour complimenting a shiny silver 'Z' at his left shoulder holding folds of robe fabric in an elegant twist. His hair wasn't dark enough to be termed black, Neville decided. It was closer to a dark brown, a shade or two darker than his eyes, which were now surveying the class in contemplation. From an objective viewpoint, Neville wasn't altogether surprised to see several of the girls – Slytherin, mostly – having a blatant partiality to this new professor. Blaise certainly wasn't looking appreciative of this.

"Obviously," Brian Zambini started (_Professor_ Zambini now, Neville corrected himself), "I am your new Potions Teacher." The Slytherin girls were silent, hanging on to his every word. Professor Zambini was apparently a Slytherin-Lockhart. "Professor Snape may come in from time to time, but in practice, I will be supervising your learning in this field." His voice was a firm no-nonsense voice, despite his relative youth, Neville noticed. Unlike Snape's slow threatening tone, Professor Zambini's was rather clipped. Brian couldn't have graduated more than two or three years ago, but he knew his current position and was obviously confident in it. "We're going to make this simple potion today-" he gestured his wand toward the board and the instructions appeared "-because I don't want to run into many complications, as may arise from a difficult concoction. Today I want to see how you interact as a class; which of you have strength and knowledge in potions…" his gaze wandered toward Neville, "…and which of you I should be careful of. At the end of the class, you will all each drink your potion – assuming it was made correctly. Of course, if it isn't, I'll be very disappointed."

Neville gulped slightly under the gaze, and looked to the board's instructions to see what they were making. Professor Zambini was right – it did look ridiculously simple. Although, it used some ingredients that Neville was sure the Ministry would find suspect at best. He wondered why they were required to make this potion. Although Professor Zambini had maintained that it was so he could see class interactions, Neville was doubtful. After all, there were plenty of other easy potions that even _he_ would have a hard time botching up. Not much of the rest of the class seemed to notice the odd potion choice – and most of the girls were too busy looking dreamily at Professor Zambini to have glanced at the board at all.

The result had pleasantly tasted rather like grape, Neville found. All considered, the day's lesson hadn't been entirely productive, aside from Neville having the pleasure of not making a terrible mistake in his concoction.

He fell in step beside Seamus after class as he was striding down the corridor, to ask him whether he'd thought it a strange class.

"Well, sure, I guess," Seamus admitted. "I mean, it was a rather silly potion that didn't seem to have a point. But hey, it's like he said, he just wanted to see what everyone was like. We'll probably get a decent potion tomorrow. I'm not really worried."

And within a new cradle of warm apathy, Neville found he wasn't worried either.

"If I have to sit here for much longer my arse is going to fall off from gangrene," Tony said, frustrated, running a hand through her wax-messed blue hair, now seeming a darker hue under the only available light of roadside streetlights on the route to Auckland.

"Now you can't patronise _us_ for 'complaining like children'," Trina pointed out, motioning to herself and the back seat passengers. "It's _you_ who's driving this thing."

"I know, I know. It's just that Auckland moves further and further away each time I go there. The city thinks it's funny to sidestep up the country."

"Oh, yes, of course that's the reason…" Trina said, rolling her eyes, then looking out at the other cars on the relatively relaxed motorway. "We're coming into Auckland _now_ – what are you complaining about?"

"Apart from the gangrene arse," Tony obliged, pausing a moment to check the rear-view mirror before changing to the inside lane and putting on more speed, "there's the small fact that Auckland's the size of a small country, so we've still got ages to go before we get to the Pt Chev flat."

"Do your butt exercises," Trina laughed. "And _flex_…2…3…4…_relax…_2…3…4…and _flex…_2…3…4…" As she spoke she could be seen to be subtly moving up and down in her seat, bringing undisguised bouts of laughter from several of the Hogwarts students behind them.

Tony laughed too, but responded, "how about not? What are some car games we could play instead?"

"My Dad likes I-Spy a lot," said Hermione. "We could play that."

"Okay," said Trina. "I spy with my little eye-"

"You mean the big hairy googly one you use to communicate with your own people," Tony interrupted.

"-something beginning with…" Trina continued, as if she hadn't heard, but her voice had increased its volume as if to drown out a buzzing pest, "…P!"

"Paint?" guessed Hermione, looking at the markings on the road zipping beneath them.

"Nope."

"Picture?" ventured Harry.

"Nope," said Trina, looking more and more delighted.

"Porcupine!" Ron said triumphantly, and Harry looked at him, perplexed.

"There's no porcupine!" Harry exclaimed.

"Well," Ron said helplessly, with a slight shrug. "I thought maybe she'd seen one…"

"Pain in the Arse," Draco stated grumpily, looking directly at Trina, his meaning obvious.

Trina looked genuinely surprised. "I'd thought that would be a hard one…"

"You do realise he was talking about _you_…" Tony said through her broad amused smile.

"Oh, in that case it doesn't count," Trina said after she'd shot Draco a glare. "Because I was talking about Tony."

"You can't do that!" protested Tony. "If it was right it was right!"

"Besides," added Harry, "that's not a fair one anyway, because it's an opinion, not the name of an object."

"It's true, it starts with 'P', and it was something I saw – unlike a porcupine," Trina listed. "Seems fair to me."

"No it's not!" shot back Ron, perhaps a little sore over the continued hassles poked at his porcupine attempt.

"But technically-"

"Technically nothing!" Ron said, on a roll now. "You have to choose something else!"

"Okay, okay," Trina said. "So I have another go?"

"No!" Tony said. "You wasted yours on a cheat."

"That wasn't-!"

"Harry, you go," Tony interrupted again.

"Uh," Harry started. "I spy with my little eye…something beginning with…uh…T."

"Tony!"

"Trina!"

"Tentacle!" (That was Ron)

The answers fired at Harry from all directions, each one met with a 'no'.

Apart from his guess of 'Pain in the Arse' (which everybody knew wasn't a serious guess – he'd just been making a rude statement that happened to match what Trina was talking about), Draco had been stubbornly unwilling to participate. Not that anyone found this particularly unfortunate –they were more than happy to play a fun game without the cumbersome burden of Sour Wet Blanket.

"Tower," Hermione said, and this time was answered with a 'yes'.

"But there's heaps of towers!" Ron protested. "How was I to know you'd pick that?"

"If there's heaps," Harry said, "you should have said it first, because it would be more likely that I'd see it, wouldn't it?"

Ron sulked.

"I meant _that_ tower," Harry said, pointing a fair distance away to what was easily the tallest structure around. It looked like a high stone cylinder, but near the top, it widened into a broader cylinder, before narrowing again, this time to a fine toothpick point. The entire structure was lit in various colours, and the lights allowed them to see to the end of the point, it's tip slicing the sky.

"That," Tony said, more for Hermione's benefit than because anyone would be interested, "is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere."

"Really?" said Hermione, predictably. "Can we go inside?"

"Well, not now, obviously…" Tony trailed off.

"There are viewing areas inside it," Trina said, "and a really flash restaurant – dress-up to the stars dress code – and a casino."

"With the same dress code, I think," Tony added. "I've never been in either of those – the restaurant charges a soul or two, and I think that you have to be twenty-one to get in that particular casino. Odd really, when all others in the country are 18." Trina was sitting in her seat with a rather proud and almost conniving smile, so Tony added, "and now, see, Trina's planning on going in there just because she knows I can't. Purely for spite, of course."

Trina's smile faltered, "Well, I would, but I don't have anything to wear that would let me in."

"Then all is well."

"Shut up."

"Justice has been served."

"Shut up."

"Equality in the ranks."

"Just drive!"

Tony smiled to herself, as she looked at the road ahead, determinedly not looking at Trina. Hermione resumed the game with an "I spy with my little eye…", and so it went for perhaps the next hour, Draco not participating but to throw in the odd sarcastic comment, and Tony's imagined gangrene only getting worse.

It was a welcome relief when Tony pulled out of the motorway and they all soon found themselves in the suburb of Point Chevalier. Even more was the relief when they rolled to a stop outside a block of homes in a quiet side street.

"Uh, we're here," Trina said to Tony, who was still staring blankly ahead, idly scratching her forearm.

"I know," she replied. "Just basking in the knowledge I'm free to get out of the car now."

Trina's face was incredulous. "So…get out then."

The cool night air rushed into the car when Tony opened her door and stepped out, the others following suit. After the obligatory stretching and complaining of sore muscles, bodies were laden down with luggage to take inside the flat.

"At least they left it reasonably tidy," Trina surveyed the living room as they walked in and turned on the light.

"Sure," Tony said, grumpily, as she headed towards the kitchen, "for a Tasmanian Devil."

Trina chose not to reply, but instead abruptly dumped her bags to the floor, a little louder than she needed to.

"There isn't much in the cupboards," Tony reported loudly into the living room. "We'll have to get stuff tomorrow. I'll make a list now of what we need."

"Fine, you do that," Trina said, still perhaps a little more sharply than was required. "I'll make beds up…that's a point…" She trailed off slowly.

"What's a point?" Tony stuck her head around the edge of the kitchen to see Trina looking perplexed.

"How are we all gonna sleep? I mean, we have a double bed, a single, one pull-out, and two couches – distributed among three rooms. What are the arrangements gonna be?"

Ron and Draco were looking at each other rather nervously. Despite obviously having been able to put up with sharing a room in Taupo, neither seemed keen to repeat the process.

"No boys and girls together in the same room," Tony asserted. "We've at least got to be half-way decent."

"Well who's getting the double bed?" Trina queried. Looks were swapped around the room. Trina looked slyly at Tony and said conspiratorially, "you could share it with Draco."

The blonde in question raised one elegantly-shaped brow incredulously.

"I'd rather chew my own arm off," Tony muttered, as her head again disappeared into the kitchen to continue the list. "Spread – chocolate or honey?"

"Chocolate – Milky Way. So how will the double bed be taken up? It's hardly fair that only one person gets it, when so many people have to make do with dinky couches."

"Ok, well one thing we know," Tony said as she strode into the living room to face Trina, looking as though she was about to dispense a great piece of wisdom. "Boys do not share beds. Even if they're the best of friends. It's just not in their culture. It's like friends giving each other a random kiss on the cheek in a public place – girls can do it, but not guys."

"So…"

"So presumably, it'll be two girls who get the bed. And common sense says that'll be you and me."

The same blonde eyebrow rose again at that concept, and Tony looked at him unimpressed and added to him in a monotone, "yes, our secret is out. That is why I don't want to share a bed with you. I'm hot for Trina. We get up to ruderies all night- "

She was cut short by a sharp poke from Trina's elbow. "You'd better be careful about dishing that load of codswallop out," Trina was saying. "One day someone might take you seriously. It looks like some of these people already have."

Tony looked at the four English students to see Ron looking particularly petrified, Hermione and Harry looking vaguely uneasy, and Draco looking, as always, not entirely readable – perhaps with an element of shock, with a vague amusement.

"Then they've got fifty different kinds of issues," Tony said, and clearing her throat loudly, added as if giving a public address, "_I like boys._"

"Ok, that's us two organised," Trina said.

"You're _not_ putting me on a couch," came a drawling voice, and nobody needed to turn to know from whom it was coming.

"That's hardly fair," Harry spoke up. "Why should _you_ get the other bed?"

"It's not as if you deserve it," Ron added.

"Oh, come on," Hermione interjected. "Let's be diplomatic about this- "

"Only because you think dipl- di- because you think _that_ will get _you_ the bed!" Ron retorted.

"That's not true, Ron-!"

"_Shut up!" _Tony's voice cut through the argument.

Silence.

"Whoa, listen to that beautiful sound of…nothing."

"You just ruined it," Trina pointed out.

"Look, if we can't figure this out- What?" She'd felt a vice-like grip on her arm and turned to see Trina grasping it to stop her speech.

Trina had an enlightened expression as she said slowly, "Let him have the bed."

"What?!" said Ron incredulously, and Draco was looking victorious. "But-!"

"Be the better man," Trina interrupted to Ron. "Let Malfoy have the bed."

Ron huffed off to sit on his couch, grumbling, and Trina said something about putting the Gryffindor boys in the living room and Hermione on a mattress on of the floor of the girl's room, before heading off to get bedsheets.

Tony didn't miss the gleam in her eye, but decided not to ask what it was for.

"Hermione, come help make up his bed."

Draco found this comment intensely satisfying, but Hermione only scowled at him darkly and hesitate a moment before heading off to help Trina.

"So…I'll just leave my stuff here then?" Harry's voice cut tentatively through the quietened lounge, and he looked down to his bags by one of the couches.

"Yeah, you and Ron will sleep in here," Tony affirmed. "One of you on that couch, and the other on the fold-out bed…well, that _will_ be a fold out bed…after we, y'know, fold it out."

"Right, obviously," Harry affirmed, and he took his bag with him into the bathroom, which Trina had pointed out to him on his way down the hall. Draco followed him and fidgeted impatiently in the hall for Harry to finish using the room.

It didn't take long for the beds to be all neatly ready for their occupants, and fortunately for everyone, Ron hadn't continued to make a big deal of Draco having the other bed. Harry meandered back into the living room from the hall, now comfortably wearing his bed-wear of boxers, and a t-shirt that was clearly several sizes too big for him. Another apparent thing that was noted as he put his bag next to the pull-out bed was the new glasses framing his eyes.

"Ah, I was wondering if you wore those much," Tony said.

"Yeah, well," Harry said, absentmindedly. "I wouldn't wear the contacts to bed, obviously, but I still want to be able to see."

"Sight's over-rated," Tony mused as she spied Draco down the hall coming from the bathroom in his boxers and t-shirt, with a truly grumpy expression on his face. "It's not always an appreciated gift."

"_You_ don't seem to mind, when Malfoy's in front of you," Ron's voice said bitterly, and to his annoyance, Tony didn't rise to the bait.

"Get over yourself," was all she said before heading down to the bathroom.

"Ok, Monsieur Mock-worthy Malfoy," Trina's voice leaked down the hall to the Gryffindor boys, and Harry could almost hear Draco's indignant brow-raise. "Your bed's finished, so get your unsociable arse into your little lair and let's all hope tomorrow's sun has the power to extract your wand that's so firmly planted…well, where the sun isn't."

Harry kept an ear out for Draco's retort, but was surprised to hear it was not forthcoming, even as Hermione and Trina were re-entering the living-room. Any notion that Draco was becoming less disagreeable was killed by the almighty bang that came from the door to Draco's room as he slammed it.

"Whoa," Tony said in awe as she emerged into the living-room in her extremely large t-shirt with a giant thumbprint on the back. Harry remembered it from the first night they'd all landed in this country. "What did the door ever do to him?"

"Probably wasn't shiny enough to show his reflection," Trina said, shrugging.

Tony rolled her eyes as she quietly swore in frustrated fascination. She initially wondered if perhaps she shouldn't have said it, but in retrospect decided it didn't matter anyway, because it couldn't have been heard over the monstrous roar that happened next and threatened to flay them all.

"WHO IN HADES-?!!"

All noise stilled in the living-room as glances were swapped, before Tony muttered to Trina, "You're in trouble…"

Sure enough, Draco Malfoy came striding into the living-room, flicking his blonde hair harshly from his face as he glared at his audience. Tony thought he looked like the most vicious homicidal Backstreet Boy she'd ever seen, and directed a questioning look at Trina.

Trina couldn't refrain from grinning broadly, and when Draco saw it mirrored in Hermione's face he just about ruptured his own in rage.

"IT WAS YOUR IDEA, WASN'T IT?!!" Draco looked like he was about to lunge for Trina's throat.

"Oh, get over it," Trina responded. "It's really not a big problem."

"What's not?" Tony asked.

"We short-sheeted his bed."

Tony laughed, and Harry and Ron looked at each other in impressed delight as they imagined how Draco must have first reacted at the discovery.

This did nothing to settle him down.

"I ought to hex you all, right here!" Draco was yelling. "You low-down, good-for-nothing pieces of hippogriff dung! I should give you all boils to last a year!"

"Except you don't have your stick," Tony managed to get out through her mirth. "Look, we can fix the bed – since it's obvious _you _won't. Then you can have your sadistic little dreams in comfort."

If ever Draco was mourning the loss of his wand, surely it would have been now. His eyes were blazing, and Tony was sure that the only thing keeping him flying at Trina in rage was the fact he was outnumbered. That, and a miracle. His jaw was tightly clenched, and Tony could even make out the pulse in his neck.

He stepped back and motioned down the hall in mock graciousness. "So fix it."

Trina almost cheerfully began to walk down the hall to oblige, but was soon stopped by an alarmed Draco grabbing her arm and exclaiming, "Not you!"

Tony rolled her eyes and decided against retaliating against him, as she made her way to rectify the bed. Walking a little more slowly than perhaps was necessary.

It was going to be a long night, she could see. What other dramas were going to make life worse before they finally got to England?

However bad the stresses life decided to hand out as a bitter after-dinner mint, they could be somewhat alleviated with a thick creamy flavourful coffee from the sun-kissed table of 'Dulce Vita'. Tony revelled in this knowledge as the wandless magic of the mochaccino slid down her throat, warming it. She smiled across the coffee table as she watched Trina stare quizzically down at her latte - no doubt wondering why it was served in a glass.

"Why is it just Dulce Vita that serves this in a glass?" Trina queried. "It's stupid. It's too hot for me to pick up!"

"That's the point," Tony responded. "It's for decorative purposes only."

"Oh, well that makes it all alright then."

Tony leaned back in one of the soft red lounge seats that the café had by its window. This was the sunniest spot of the place, and by far the most comfortable. A polished wooden coffee table squatted between the three seats, and had the two coffees perched on it, as well as a slice of mud cake the two girls were sharing.

"Y'know," mused Tony, absently licking the prongs of her fork clean from her last bite, "as much as I like English accents, it's nice to not have them around for a while."

"Yeah. They were starting to get rather unco-operative and making things hard."

Tony raised her eyebrows incredulously at the understatement referring to their new companions, but didn't say anything as she took another sip of coffee.

"They're not the most happy uplifting people," Trina continued.

"It does put things a bit in perspective though. I mean, we have something that millions of parents worldwide would skin their teeth for, for their kids."

 Trina raised a brow. "And that would be…? Surely not having them here, because most parents aren't after that."

"We have found the cure for Potter-world Infatuations! I liked Draco, you sorta liked Bon-Bon, but now it's all I can do to not rip Draco's head off, and you don't look like you've given Ron much thought in the check-him-out way."

"Well, we _have _had more urgent things to worry about."

"That, and now we've been around them long enough to realise they're more than pretty faces, and we can't shut them up just by closing a book or pressing stop on the DVD remote."

"Somehow I'm not as comforted as it sounded like I should have been."

"At least we're not likely to see them again once we've dropped them off in England," Tony reassured her friend. "They're nice enough people, I'm sure, - well, with the exception of one – but when they're millions of miles from home they wouldn't be the first choice of company."

"All considered, they're coping reasonably well now, I guess. No doubt Hermione will be enjoying herself at the library," Trina said. "Now let's just hope the boys don't destroy anything in the flat, or Antonia will kill me."

"Harry should be able to set them straight about muggle stuff," Tony assured her. "Y'know, impart jewels of wisdom like 'Those sockets in the walls aren't designed to hold forks'."

"How are the sales of your car and computer going? We can get outta here when they're gone, right?"

"Yeah, just finalising stuff. Got a guy coming to see the car later, and I'd posted all the specs of my computer on Trade Me, so that doesn't get visitors – I just courier it off. I have a buyer already, so I'll post it this morning."

"So it's all coming along then. Minimal glitches."

"Yeah," Tony affirmed, and leaned back in her chair with her coffee cup in hand. Comfortable silence settled over the two girls, and Trina basked in the sunlit morning's glow.

It was with a small shriek and a burst of adrenalin that Trina started out of her reverie. Tony had suddenly tried to swallow her coffee with her nose, it seemed. Or perhaps she'd just seen a premonition of her death. Or both. Her eyes were wide, and hacking coughs of recovery followed the invading spray of coffee that had flown in Trina's direction.

"Oh, _unbelievably gross, Tony_!" Trina was distinctly unimpressed as she wiped the drops of caffeinated wetness from her jacket. She looked up to see Tony still looking shell-shocked, her hand over her mouth. "Oh, it's a little late for that! The coffee already left that port!" Tony still didn't move. "Ok, what?"

It was like talking to a cardboard cut-out before Tony slowly and quietly said, "We got our passports, didn't we?"

"Yes," Trina said, rolling her eyes. "We sorted that out back in Hastings!"

Tony didn't look comforted, but in fact continued, "So I have a passport. And…you have a passport."

Trina was starting to look at Tony as though there may have been something unhealthy in the coffee.

"So we have two passports," Tony continued. "But, we have six people."

Trina froze as she shared in the realisation. "What are we going to do?" she said tentatively.

"Um…I don't think we should mention it to the others. Luckily for us, it obviously hasn't occurred to Harry or Hermione that they'd all need one. Let's hope it stays like that."

"Until when?!" Trina said almost hysterically. "There's no point in applying for one for each of them! It doesn't work that easily!"

"I know, I know," Tony said hurriedly. "We'll think of something."

"Like what? We're going to swim over there?!"

"We could figure out a way to contact someone who could help, maybe. Perhaps we could start with Wiccan stores and the like. May not be the thing we're looking for, but maybe wizards would use them for fronts or something."

"Sound like you're grasping at straws."

"Better than thin air. Until we get our plan in order, pretend that nothing's wrong." Tony looked to the ceiling in frustration. "Oh, I can't _believe_ I didn't think of that!"

"So what are we going to do here in Auckland, in the meantime?"

"We'll just keep them distracted for a bit. Take them to the Sky Tower. Take them to Rainbow's End." A smile ticked at the corner of her mouth as she added, "Take them to Fear Fall."

Trina couldn't think of anything to say. So she didn't. She just sat.

They both did.

Back at the flat, life was continuing in its sweet, vindictive, homicidal way.

"Ron's not 'dirt poor'!" Harry was yelling. "You take that back, Malfoy!"

"Don't mind if I do," Draco said nonchalantly, and snatched his t-shirt back from Ron's inquisitive fingers. "I don't care what kind of inanimate natural object he's as poor as – the fact is he'll never afford the clothes I wear."

"I liked him better drunk," Ron muttered to Harry through gritted teeth. "He didn't stick his nose in our business, with his hangover."

"Believe me when I say," Draco stated loftily, "that you weren't my first choice either, when it came to who I'd pick to be lost on the other side of the world with."

"Why did you come with us anyway?" Harry said, accusingly.

"Well, Potter," Draco sneered, "it just sounded like the sunniest spot at the time. I thought I'd take a holiday. The move was perfectly under my control, of course, just like yours."

"I mean," Harry began, his voice steady but with an underlying note of rage that was common in his dialogue with Draco Malfoy, "why did you get involved in this spell thing that brought us here? You usually have your idiot cronies Crabbe and Goyle with you. Find a better idol, did they?"

Draco frowned, but then gave a patronising smile as he responded, "They'd be hard pressed to find better than me in that excuse for a school, Potter. Especially with you in the student number. However well off those two have done with attaching themselves to me with their parasitic presence, they were in fact stuffing their faces in the Great Hall at the time of our holiday departure. I just happened to be fairly near you at the time."

"Going to hex us, probably," Ron muttered at him, darkly.

"Your gift of foresight is admirable, Weasel."

"Your attitude is really not helping, here," Harry said.

"That just made you a big hypoppotamuscrite!" Draco retorted.

Harry was so surprised at the childish word-meld, that he didn't fire a comeback.  "Why do you hate us all so much, Malfoy?" Harry said. "What's your problem with me?"

Draco seemed rather taken aback at this sudden turn to seriousness; at an attempt at a decent conversation, as if they were on good terms. At first he was flustered into speechlessness, but after a moment's thought and an indignant sneer, concluded with, "You want _me_ to be nice to you, Potter? Give me a reason."

Harry and Draco were still facing each other down in the silent wake of this poignant ultimatum when Trina and Tony walked in.

"What'd I miss?" Tony said curiously.

"Nothing," Draco said abruptly, still looking determinedly at Harry.

"Can I have a look at Harry's eyes after you, Draco?" Trina asked. "I hear from many female fans of his that they're supposed to be riveting, but I never quite took that seriously until now, when I see the infamous Draco Malfoy bewitched by their brilliance."

"Very amusing," Draco said sarcastically, not budging.

Draco was torn from his challenging gaze with Harry when a sharp rap came on the door, and he looked up startled. In realisation that'd Potter had stared him down he scowled deeply and left the room, Ron's amused taunting following him.

Harry turned to see Tony talking with the visitor, and he heard her say, "that's the car – do you want to test drive it?" It was the potential buyer, then.

As Tony left to go to the car with the buyer, Trina said, "As soon as Hermione gets back, we're going out. Just so you know."

"Where are we going?" said Harry.

"Uh…Sky Tower, then Rainbow's End."

"Why?"

"Well, uh…" Trina tried to think of something to say that the trio would receive well, and she nervously picked at her nails. "Ok, this is why: I know you're all getting really frustrated at staying here any longer than you have to, and me and Tony have been doing tourist-y things, so we're just quickly doing these two things, and getting things generally hurried up."

Trina finished her speech, and looked at her listeners with apprehension. She wasn't sure how things would be 'hurried up', but she'd been put on the spot. She'd worry about that later.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, before Harry shrugged and said, "Okay, sure. Sounds good."

An hour and an ice cream later (Tony had bought them all one each to celebrate the successful sale of her car, and computer that she'd sent off earlier) they were all adventuring in Auckland City. The Sky Tower hadn't been exactly boring, but Hermione constantly exclaiming on the educational aspects and making remarks about geographical location took the fun out of it a little, Harry thought. It had been vaguely disturbing to stand on clear flooring thousands and thousands of feet above the high city buildings below. Ron didn't want to get too near the walls, which were thick glass all around.

Rainbow's End proved to be much more interesting, and one look at Ron's ecstatic face showed the redhead thought the same. Harry had been unsure how his friend would take the roller coaster, but in retrospect, he supposed it wasn't all that different from falling down the shaft to the Chamber of Secrets. Except the Chamber hadn't gone in sharp circles or upside down. The roller coaster crawled to a stop and Tony and the two boys walked past various sideshows to meet up with their friends just emerging from the Simulator.

"Hey," Tony called to Trina as they drew nearer, "what was showing today?"

Trina looked in surprise at a bird that had glided alarmingly close to her, before replying, "We were inside a volcano and had to drive this thing around and avoid all the spitting magma."

Tony smiled at Trina's shock over the diving bird. "I like driving the hovercraft around all the futuristic-city wreckage better."

Draco was trying to look cool and aloof, but he'd obviously enjoyed it, since his cheeks had a faint flush of pink and his eyes barely concealed a sparkle.

"The roller coaster was great," Harry said, "what's next?"

"Gold Rush!" Tony exclaimed, and took of at a run to another corner of the amusement park, the other five in hot pursuit. Soon they were all bundled into a large cart, rolling toward the yawning mouth of what appeared to be a dark mine.

"Ok," said Trina, turning around to face the four English youths as if she were imparting a pep talk, "this ride isn't scary at all. But to make it extremely fun, scream as if you're facing your doom, and when you get to the dip in the track at the end, throw your hands up in the air as if you're going down a cliff."

"It works!" Tony excitedly threw over her shoulder, and they were off. The cart built up quite a speed, and at one point looked like it was going to collide with a cart full of coals at the end of the track, but they swerved at the last second to avoid it. They zoomed past a clearly fake man mounted on a pole holding a lantern and gliding along a track, his boneless legs hanging idly.

"AUGH! DEAD MAN WALKING!" Trina screamed, and grasped at Tony's arm. Harry was amused to see Tony screaming right back, and their exhilaration added extra spark to the ride. Of course, Draco had sat at the back, determined not to show any enjoyment, but by the end of the ride the Gryffindor three were more inclined to join in the spirit of things by throwing their hands in the air and calling out a little as the cart when down the oh-so-frightening incline of a slope going down a couple of feet.

"Again! Again!" Tony excitedly called, bouncing up and down in the cart like a small child, as it slowed back to it's starting position. The Rainbow's End staff member controlling the ride laughed at them all, before setting the cart in motion again.

This time, the experience was more animated with added terror of three more people.

"IT'S THE DEAD MAN!" Tony shrieked, pointing to the floppy-legged miner gliding along his track again, and her friends screamed in response.

Harry knew it was just his imagination, but the small dip in the track at the end of the ride seemed so much steeper and so much scarier with all of them screaming as though they were plummeting to their deaths. Well, all sans Draco, that is.

"That was great," Hermione said breathlessly as they all scrambled out of the cart and began to walk to the centre of the park. "Where are we going now?"

"Hopefully something that would provoke a little more _genuine_ interest," Draco drawled bitterly.

"I can think of one," Tony said conspiratorially, and Trina's eyes widened in trauma of the memory.

"I'm _not_ going on that," she said firmly. "No, not ever again. I don't care what you'd pay me."

Now Draco looked more interested.

"What's that?" Ron asked, a little apprehensive.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Tony narrated in a ringmaster manner, "I give you…"

They turned the corner of a building to stand in front of a hugely high structure, and Trina finished, "…Fear Fall."

"Fear Fall?" Hermione asked.

"You go up the side of that column," exclaimed Tony, "belted into a seat. See? There go some people now. Then you're held at the top for a few seconds, before you shoot down at the speed of gravity. People with heart problems etc aren't allowed to go on it."

Ron gulped audibly, and they all turned to watch the group of people who had gone up in the seats and now looked the size of small paper clips.

"They're just staying up there," Ron started. "It's not-"

"Just wait," prompted Tony.

Then with a click, whatever was holding the seats at the top let go, and the people came plummeting down to earth, their screams barely able to keep up with them.

"What family-friendly entertainment," Tony said with a sarcastic smile. "Of course, I'd only go near it if someone made it worth my while. Been down once – never again. 'Never' being a conditional state of mind, naturally."

"Me neither," Trina said, looking slightly sick.

"It's probably not _that_ bad," Draco said, but he looked a little put off by what he'd just seen. "You're just dramatising it."

"Am not!"

"I might go on it," said Harry looking up to the top of the massive column. "It looks fun. And at least it's something I've never tried before, so it'll be an interesting experience."

"You'd go on _that,_ Harry?" Ron asked incredulously. "It'll probably kill you when it hits the bottom!"

"Oh, it slows down before the bottom of course," Tony interjected, "otherwise your brain would shoot out the top of your head. I don't know exactly how high that monster is, but it probably takes less than 5 seconds to get down. Ever wondered what it felt like to fall from a 18-storey building?"

"Come with me, Ron?" Harry asked. "Hermione?"

"No way, Harry," Ron said, and Hermione didn't look overly keen either.

"We'll watch you from down here," she said.

Harry looked levelly at Draco. "You go on it," he challenged. "See if they're over-dramatising it."

Draco looked vaguely as if he'd wished he hadn't said anything.

"You going on it, Potter?"

"Why? You scared?"

"You wish."

The two boys once again stood in a face-off, and the others looked between them as if watching an exciting tennis match.

"Go," Harry once again challenged him.

After a moment's thought Draco allowed a small smile of anticipation at the corner of his mouth to escape and he stuck out his hand as he said in a challenge, "I'll go if you go."

Harry looked down at the offered hand – a moment recreating one that happened five years earlier. With a glint in his eye, Harry looked determinedly at Draco…and took the offered hand, giving it one brisk shake before they both headed over to the bottom of Fear Fall.

Harry had noticed Ron's face of incredulous surprise before he'd approached the giant column at a run, Draco jogging behind him. He knew something formative had just happened, but he wasn't sure what.

He knew they were not friends. It wouldn't happen that easily. And there were too many things standing in the way of that anyway. For a start, no one had established where exactly Draco Malfoy's loyalties lay. Harry turned his head in mid-run to see Malfoy behind him, his pale hair being blown back by the forged breeze. His grey eyes were excited, with a glint at the challenge before him.

No, they were certainly not friends. But as the two boys were strapped into seats, Harry knew that despite the absence of friendship, they had reached an…understanding. There was no other word Harry could think of to describe it. He still didn't _like_ the blonde on the other end of the row of seats, of course, but it seemed that since the handshake, their avid dislike for one another had reached a more neutral plane.

That in itself was more than Harry would ever have thought possible, and in the shock of the realisation he hadn't realised that the seats had begun their slow ascent up the column, until he saw broken and dismembered limbs on the roof of the building just below. Initial shock set in before he realised they were a deliberate novelty addition of the ride. He looked over to see if Draco had noticed them. He obviously had, but his nervous excitement still outweighed his apprehension.

It was like riding in a lift – except on the outside of a building, and his legs dangled freely from his chair, his feet idly kicking at nothing, many feet from the ground. There was a click as they reached the top, and the cap on the structure held onto them. He could no longer see the expressions of his friends on the ground, but imagined Ron's nervousness and smiled.

He waited for the descent, but it didn't happen. What if they were stuck up here? What if-

Then it happened.

Harry's stomach felt like it flew out of his mouth. He was falling… so fast… The force of the air on his face as he fell was so harsh he found he couldn't keep his eyes open, so he clamped them shut… there was nothing to focus on anyway…it was moving so fast… so fast…_any minute, any minute now_, he pleaded. _Slow down_…

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few seconds, Harry felt the presence of a new feeling, but it hadn't been what he'd imagined a slowing ride would feel like. Instead of feeling the air rushing upwards past him, it seemed to envelop him entirely, and snatch him from his very seat.

And then he hit the ground, falling forwards onto his hands and knees.

_Something's wrong,_ he thought. The ground beneath him was gritty stone floor, not the grass of Rainbow's End. And it was night.

With a start, Harry knew he was home.

But it wasn't a good thing.

A/N:  I know this chapter took ages to come along, and my apologies. A nasty bout of Writer's Block last lasting almost-forever had ground this thing to a halt for a while. I have to say, the only thing that got me to shift my A into G was a hurry-up review (thanks, Chateaupierre), although I'm sure I've probably lost several readers by now. Thanks to the readers who have contacted me to let me know how much they enjoy the story, or even just to say hi.

_I don't know when the next chapter will be out (I think there's only 1 or 2 to go). The upside is that I've planned until the end of the story, so I won't get such a horrid case of Writer's Block again. The downside (well, not really for me) is that I'm busy with organising our church's Youth Mission Team's trip to the Philippines – which Trina and I are both on, incidentally, so I don't know how much time I'll have available to story-writing. We leave early July to work with missionaries over in Manilla, and we'll be there for 3 weeks, visiting different classes of people – right down to those living in boxes at the rubbish dump. So obviously I won't be writing any more of WWC during that time._

_Oh, and I've hacked all my waxed blue hair off! I miss it terribly. But I'll keep it in the story for the sake of continuity. _


	16. Home Bittersweet Home

**Chapter 16: Home Bittersweet Home**

****

Harry wasn't as shocked as he'd thought he should be, to find out that he was now blind. Though perhaps this was because he was currently more concerned with the thudding headache at his right temple.

The floor was cold, and fine grit ground into the side of his head where he lay. The thick smell of dirt and dust hovered at the floor. Harry pushed himself up into a sitting position, his head swimming.

Groaning softly, he passed a hand in front of his eyes, although he knew the result would be…nothing. And it was.

It was then that panic started to seize him. He was blind! There must have been an accident… What had happened? He'd been falling. Falling so far, and so fast. But then he was here.  _It's all so black! Why can't I see?_ The thoughts raced frantically around his mind, and he clenched his fingers into a fist against the floor, the sharp corners of grit and stone scraping his knuckles, making him hiss through his teeth.

His efforts to recall what had just happened were interrupted with another groan – but Harry was sure this one didn't come from him. He whipped his head toward the sound, and strained to see, out of habit.

To his obvious relief and appeasing his logical mind, Harry found that the more he looked toward the sound, the more he could make out the faint outline of a shape – a hunched figure balled up on the floor some distance from him. It moved, and Harry gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Who's there?" the shape whispered, in a panicked tone.

_They can't see me,_ Harry realised, and his breathing relaxed with the discovery that he was, in fact, not blind. "Ron?"

A pause. "Harry?"

"Where are we?"

"I don't know," Ron's voice came back, laced with fear. "It's so dark in here. I can't see a thing. I- oh wait, I think- I'm starting to see you now, sort of."

Harry blinked and strained his eyes, and Ron's outline became clearer, although it was still too dark to make out his face very well.

Harry scrambled to his feet, and immediately wished he hadn't done it so fast. "I don't think there are any windows in here," he said, and he began to slowly pace along the wall, his fingers skimming across the unfurnished chilly walls. The brick was solid and fortified. "I think we're in some sort of castle," Harry concluded, stopping his inspection of the wall with a sigh. "But I don't think it's Hogwarts. I'm not getting a happily-ever-after feeling about this."

"This floor is really uncomfortable," Ron said. It occurred to Harry that they were probably sore due to all the time they spent motionless and unconscious. He heard Ron start to shuffle around in search of a more comfortable position.

"Ouch! Ron! You scratched me!"

"Hermione?"

"Yes, it's me," Hermione replied, sounding exasperated. "And before you ask me, no, I don't know where we are, or why."

"We must be closed up in some room," Harry concluded.

"I wonder who would do that," Ron said, sounding as though he didn't have to wonder very much to come up with a logical answer. Harry saw the Ron-shaped outline stand, and begin to wander slowly along the room, his hands outstretched.

"Hey! Don't invade my personal space, Weasel!"

"Malfoy?"

"No, it's the Dark Lord himself," Draco replied sarcastically. "Be respectful."

"What are _you_ doing here?" Ron asked, incredulously.

"Probably for the same reason as you, I'd venture to guess. Would you like to share why that is?"

"Oh, shut up, Malfoy. My _point _was, if we're being kept here by who we think we are, shouldn't you be out there being patted on the back and congratulated, or sharing in glory?"

Harry couldn't see Draco's facial response to this, of course, but the abrupt opening of the door interrupted whatever it was. Light spilled into the room in such harsh brightness, Harry squeezed his eyes shut trying to block it out. He opened them a chink, trying to get accustomed to the light.

He was eventually able to see a hooded figure framed in the doorway, that appeared to be chuckling softly, before it said, "Ah, Mr Potter, I see you and your two little friends are awake. I trust your headache wasn't too bad. Mr Malfoy…" Silence reigned within the room as the hooded figure continued in a less cruel tone, "…the Dark Lord will like to speak to you in person. Come with me."

To Harry's growing horror, he saw Draco gracefully move from his supervising leaning position against the stone wall, and stride confidently to the door, with the cold and evil grace of a gliding Dementor. Under the approving glance of the Death Eater, Draco Malfoy looked back at Harry and from under a wave of platinum hair and gave him the most victorious evil sneer Harry had seen in a long while, before he walked ahead of the Death Eater out of the door.

"No, Ginny," Fred was saying to his sister as they walked back into the house from the garden. "I tell you I _didn't _mean to throw the gnome right at you. The breeze must have lifted it."

"There _was_ no breeze!" Ginny replied indignantly.

"Really? I'm sure there was. I could have sworn I felt one lift the gnome out of my hands-"

"Oh, just shut up," Ginny grumbled as she started up the stairs, Fred following her.

"Hey, Fred! Come here!" came George's loud voice from the twins' room. Fred rushed passed his sister as he took the steps two at a time, and Ginny jogged along behind him to see what George was yelling about.

"What is it?" Fred asked his twin as he came into the room, Ginny trying to peek around him. "What- oh…."

George had lifted a pair of trousers he'd worn that morning – before his mother had told him to change before de-gnoming the garden – and showed the belt that was still threaded through the loops.

Now both boys were staring at the spelled object fastened to the belt, which was glowing brightly, and heat radiated off it in waves.

"He's got Harry!" Fred exclaimed in alarm.

George's equally alarmed look heightened as he saw his inquisitive sister also receive this information. "Ginny…"

Ginny spun around and ran from the room.

The small stone room that was their prison was in darkness again. But nothing compared to the darkness that consumed Harry. Part of him felt betrayed and foolish, and another part was almost laughing at him. Had he really believed that Draco Malfoy was on their side after all? But Tony's theory had even made sense… Harry strained to remember a moment when Draco had alluded to being on their side, but hung his head as he realised there had been none. He had let his guard down around the blonde, believing him to not be the antagonist he'd previously thought, but now the boy had shown himself to be a Judas. What could he have done to Harry in the past ten days that would make Voldemort so pleased? Harry was filled with self-disgust and betrayal.

"So Tony and Trina were wrong, it would appear," Ron said bitterly. "Not that I'm surprised Tony would concoct some elaborate theory like that, seeing as she liked Malfoy so much."

"Ron…" Hermione started to censure, but trailed off as she could think of nothing to say. "What do you think Malfoy is saying?" she finally finished.

"Who knows," Ron said, sliding down the wall and to the floor with a sigh of resignation. "How did Voldemort find us? I mean, when he took us back, we weren't even in the same place that we arrived – we were way up the country!"

"Maybe it was just some sort of reversal spell," Harry said. "I mean, there were other people around us at Rainbow's End, but they didn't come here with us. And Tony and Trina aren't here. So maybe it just brings back those it sent over in the first place."

"I've read about those spells," Hermione said. "But he still would have had to know where we were – that spell can't be just broadly thrown out into the world to bring back someone, wherever they are. It's a localised charm – the caster would still have to have known where we were."

"Then how?" Ron asked, perplexed.

Hermione sighed. "Malfoy, I would suspect. If he's a Death Eater, he's probably marked. As long as Malfoy stayed with us, Voldemort would have known where we all were."

"So that would have been his task," Harry said, in dark conclusion. "So much for the just-hexing-us story. He knew the spell was going to happen, so he made sure he was close behind us at the time."

"That- that-…" Ron spat, but couldn't seem to find an adequate description of Draco Malfoy.

"I guess some people are just a waste of hope," Harry concluded sadly.

The door opened again, reintroducing the room to the harsh light on the other side. The same hooded figure met them again, and seemed to be amused before at last he spoke.

"Not so confident now, are you, Mr Potter?" he said, icily. "Betrayed by one of your own companions – someone you had grown to trust." He let out a dry strangled laugh. "And now it's _your_ turn to come before the Dark Lord, although perhaps your welcoming will not be so warm as Mr Malfoy's."

"Ginny, wait!" George called as he ran down the stairs after his sister. "Where are you going?"

Ginny spun around abruptly at the foot of the stairs. "Dumbledore has to be told! I need to find him! He'll be able to help! He'll be able to stand up to Voldemort and get Harry back-"

"Whoa, Ginny, don't-"

"Don't start at me about being too young, or this being too dangerous! Ron's been in loads of dangerous situations, and he's not known for being braver than me!"

"That's true, you know," Fred admitted to George. "She's scary sometimes. Knowing the little brother, his survival can be put down to a run of luck."

"Well," George seemed to be fighting a losing battle with his conscience. Not surprising really, as his conscience usually didn't have a say in anything, so was probably out of practice. "How did you plan to find Dumbledore, anyway? He's not allowed at the school, so he won't be there."

Ginny silently fumed at her inability to give an answer. "I'll find him somehow."

"_We'll_ find him somehow," corrected Fred.

A sharp rapping came on the window by the kitchen.

"Was Errol out?" queried George.

"No, it can't have been him," Fred answered as he made his way toward the kitchen.

As soon as he rounded the corner, his siblings behind him, he saw the deep red plumage of their means of finding Dumbledore.

"Fawkes!" Ginny cried. "Now we can get to Dumbledore! Quickly, let's go!"

"Did mum see-?"

"No," Ginny interrupted. "She went out shopping after she sent us into the garden. See?" She pointed to the family clock, where their mother's picture was pointed to 'in town'.

Ginny scrawled a note quickly, for her mother to find, saying they had gone out and not to worry. "Now let's go!" She grabbed her cloak from the hook beside the door, and ran outside to follow Dumbledore's phoenix, who had risen from the sill and hovered in the sky, waiting for the trio to follow.

The twins also fetched their cloaks before running out of the door to follow the bird. Fawkes built up a fair speed as he headed towards the village of Ottery St Catchpole, and soon Ginny and the boys were puffing and grumbling.

"I hope he's not planning to make us run to the other end of the country," Fred got out between several puffs.

Soon after Fred said this, as they were approaching a neat row of buildings on a quiet street of the village, Fawkes ducked into an alleyway, any surrounding muggles conveniently not noticing the bright red creature. A trick of Dumbledore's, Ginny suspected.

The bird alighted on a stack of crates at the end of the alley, towered next to a brick wall that signified the dead end.

"Oh, you've got to be joking," George said disbelievingly, out of breath, as the trio came to a standstill at the wall. "Unless Dumbledore's shrunken to half his size and balled himself up in one of those crates for no particular reason-"

But even as he spoke, Fawkes rose again and continued to fly – this time _through_ the wall.

"Oh, well that makes a lot of sense then," Fred said, and he quickly followed.

The trio found themselves in another alleyway, similar to the one they had just left. Not much morning light found its way to the narrow wayside in which they now stood, and the back doors of mono-coloured shops lined the dim alley. Their personal guide phoenix disappeared into one of the open doors, and the three Weasleys quickly followed.

"We're not going to get in trouble for coming in the back, are we?" worried Ginny. Her concern wasn't shared – her brothers looked positively delighted with the idea.

They continued to follow where Fawkes had disappeared, and soon rounded a corner that took them to a cozy-looking lounge – even though some of the couches were a little worn, they looked comfy enough. It was more sunlight-illuminated than the rest of the shop. A few witches and wizards were dotted around the room having drinks or cake, but even so, there was only one with the company of a brilliantly coloured phoenix.

"Ah, you've arrived," Dumbledore said to them amicably. "I sent Fawkes because I had hoped his arrival would cause less of a disturbance."

"Mum wasn't home anyway," Ginny said as she sat down on one of the pale green overstuffed couches near Dumbledore.

"I see. Well, do sit," the old wizard said to the twins, and he himself took a seat near the window, where Fawkes had an good vantage point in surveying the street outside. "I presume you are wondering why I had an interest in seeing you all-"

"He has Harry!" Ginny blurted, and then quietened her voice in embarrassed surprise at her outburst. "We wanted to find you to tell you, and that's when Fawkes came, so we followed, and here you are, so we had to tell you and-"

"There is no need to get yourself in such a state," Dumbledore said, raising his hand in a calming gesture. "I know of Harry's approximate whereabouts, due to means of my own." He looked at the twins and cocked an eyebrow, "Although I can only imagine how it is that _you_ know." His eyes held an amused twinkle at the twins' ever-astute initiative. Fawkes was looking keenly outside, studying something.

"How did you know?" Ginny asked, enthusiastically. "What's going to happen? Is he alright?"

"I will answer your questions as best as I can," he assured them as Fawkes glided from his window seat to his object of interest outside. "But first, would you like a chocolate-fizz shake? I took the liberty of buying some for us all – they should be coming soon. Ah, here they are."

The Weasleys turned to see a rather oddly dressed girl carrying a tray of tall glasses with a spoon in each one. She looked like a common muggle, although this was a wizarding shop so she couldn't have just wandered in. To the Weasleys' surprise, instead of leaving to return to the kitchen upon depositing the tray of shakes on the table in front of them, she sat down on a couch opposite to join them.

The surprise and confusion must have registered on their faces, as the girl looked faintly embarrassed and looked up to Dumbledore to explain.

"Allow me to introduce our friend here," the kindly wizard said, motioning to the new arrival. "This is Trina, and she is the reason I know where Harry is."

Before Dumbledore could be questioned further, there was a flurry of activity at the door, and a panicked figure came running in behind Fawkes, and drew to a stop in front of Dumbledore.

"You need to come with me to help Harry Potter," came the urgent prompting. "I can take you to him."

Harry felt his heart leap into his throat and choke him, as he heard the Death Eater's morbid invitation to accompany him into Voldemort's presence.

"Harry…" Ron squeaked, but couldn't get out any more words.

"Oh," the Death Eater added, as if as an afterthought, "your friends will come too, of course."

Ron's fear, if possible, doubled. Hermione was frightened and shocked into speechlessness.

The Death Eater's cape swished ominously behind him as he turned and began to walk away, and the Gryffindors wordlessly followed.

The room they were led into was huge. Flickering fire torches lined the walls on either side of them, and grotesque insignias were sported on the hanging tapestries. Well suited to an evil wizard. In patronising irony, Harry was escorted up the broad red carpet to the end of the room, where he knew sat the one he dreaded most.

Voldemort.

Harry heard a pathetic whimper behind him, and he knew that Ron and Hermione were being escorted close behind, flanked on either side with a Death Eater.

Harry was finally jerked to a stop, Ron and Hermione packed behind him, and he allowed his eyes to travel upward to see his captor.

Voldemort was every bit as sinister as Harry remembered. He looked as if he'd never seen sunlight in his life – which, Harry supposed, he probably hadn't. Not since his bodily resurrection at the graveyard at the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts. And if the wizard ever ventured outside, it would most probably be at night. All considered, the deathly pallor was no great surprise, albeit a little unnerving.

If anyone had never known of Voldemort or whether he was evil, his eyes would leave no doubt in their mind. The red livid eyes radiated hostility as they bored down into Harry. His flat nose with slitted nostrils made him look like an anaemic but deadly snake. An ironic comparison for the notorious once-Slytherin.

"Mr Potter," he wheezed maliciously. "Again we meet. This should be counted as a great honour for you – it is not often that any opponent of mine faces me on so many occasions."

Harry looked at the dark wizard as defiantly as he dared, but said nothing.

"It was with much disappointment I learnt of your absence," he said, and Harry couldn't help widening his eyes in surprise to hear that their stay in New Zealand hadn't been part of any plan. "You're surprised, I see," Voldemort continued. "You and your…friends. Yes, it was an act of incompetence by one who was swiftly dealt with." Harry heard Ron gulp again. "But even in a situation so outside of my initial plans, I was fortunately able to recover control. I have waited many years for things before – so although I'm not known as a patient man, I was able to wait, and watch, as you made you way up the new country you found yourselves in. Would you like to know how I knew of your progress?"

"I know already," Harry replied indignantly to the patronising tone.

"Oh, really?" Voldemort asked, in part surprise and part amusement. "Do inform me."

"It was by your vile mark. All the time you could see, and it was right along with us."

Voldemort laughed gleefully. "Yes indeed. A mark I had placed on a companion of yours – well done. I could always see you had wits about you, although perhaps more than I have given you credit for…"

"Did you plan for your quaint little spy to get close enough to find some sort of secret from us?" Harry sparked, heatedly. "That excuse for a person never learnt anything of benefit to you."

"Ah, but became close, Mr Potter?"

Harry fell silent again, reminiscing of his failure – of his vulnerability and misplaced trust to Draco Malfoy. "Not close enough," Harry said conclusively, "and nor will he ever be, now."

Something Harry had said had struck Voldemort as…odd? Or just interesting… He looked at Harry intently. "I'm sure you would have many things to say to the friend-turned-traitor-" Voldemort began.

"He was never my _friend_," Harry interrupted.

"-I can present your…_friend_…if you wish," Voldemort finished.

Harry was positive he didn't wish it. He didn't want to see Draco Malfoy's face again. He could still remember with clarity the victorious sneer he'd been delivered from this person who'd had a hope of redemption – but no longer.

But Voldemort must have already motioned for Draco to come out, Harry supposed, as there was a great creaking of a massive door behind Voldemort as several Death Eaters emerged, presumably escorting the victorious Draco, who had probably been given a medal, now.

As if presenting an award, Voldemort announced, "I present…the traitor of the great and mighty Harry Potter into my hands."

With that the crowd of Death Eaters prodded someone forward, and Harry prepared to meet the victorious grey eyes again.

Except the eyes weren't grey – they were blue.

A blue almost as vibrant as the hair.

For moments that seemed like hours, Harry could not say anything. He couldn't see the reactions of his friends behind him, but he imagined they were similar.

"Perhaps," Voldemort broke the stunned silence, "_not_ more wits than I gave you credit for. Although admittedly, your theory came close. Your idea, although prudent, could not in fact have worked – as most people know, only after a certain age do I allow anyone to be initiated formally into my circle. Draco Malfoy is not yet old enough to receive the 'Dark Mark' – an unfortunate status to be rectified on his next birthday. "

Harry continued to stare in transfixed shock at Tony as Voldemort explained this in his arrogant victorious tone.

"Harry-" started Tony, but was quickly cut short by Voldemort.

"Silence! Or you will again know the touch of the Cruciatus! Now is not the time for me to deal with you."

Tony gnawed on her bottom lip and fell silent.

Voldemort looked thoughtful for a moment, and then commanded, "Bring the young Malfoy to me."

The Death Eater standing near Harry hitched his breath at this. Harry recognised him as the one who had taken Draco from their company earlier.

"M- my Lord?" he started, quaking, and his eyes held the fear of a condemned man. "I had supposed you would like to see him, my Lord…supposed he had served your purpose…"

Voldemort's eyes darkened ominously.

"…I sent him first. I presumed he had arrived to you."

Voldemort stood, enraged. "What?! I did not give you any such instruction! How dare you presume to dictate them!" The Death Eater cowered under his Master's gaze. "And did you not accompany him?!"

"My Lord, I thought-"

"He is an uninitiated youth – in effect, not yet my follower. You obviously did _not_ think! You _insolent, incompetent fool! CRUCIO!_"

The screams of the collapsed Death Eater under the curse governed the room; their ring hovering even after the curse was lifted.

"Do you understand the foolishness of what you have done?" Voldemort said darkly.

"Yes, my Lord," the Death Eater bleated. "I'm so sorry – so sorry, my Lord. It won't happen again."

"No," Voldemort agreed. "It won't. _AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

This time there were no anguished screams – no sound but for Ron's all-encompassing gasp of horror and fear.

"Now I must _find_ the boy!" Voldemort yelled, frustrated, his eyes glowing dangerously.

"I would say you have more pressing concerns at the moment, Tom," came a new voice.

Harry spun around in surprise to see the new entrants to the room – Dumbledore walking slowly and surely towards Voldemort, followed by Fred, George, and Ginny.

And all had their wands drawn.

"Dumbledore…" Voldemort said, his tone bitter but with a trace of apprehension.

"Indeed," the old man replied authoritatively. "Your history of animosity with Harry Potter is known enough, but I see no reason for you to threaten these two." He glanced momentarily at Ron and Hermione before returning his gaze levelly to the evil wizard before him.

"I never need a _reason_, Dumbledore," he replied sinisterly.

The old wizard surveyed Voldemort calculatingly before replying, "One of the things that make you unable to be a truly great wizard, Tom."

The creature that was Tom Riddle hissed alarmingly as he stood. "I have reached my ambition – I have become feared and respected! That is great enough!"

"Enforced respect driven by fear is not a medallion of honour."

"It does not matter!"

Dumbledore was silent for a moment, and he looked at Harry and his friends, who were each almost quaking in defenceless fear. "And you would endeavour to show a display of greatness by defeating a small group of unarmed children? That does not justify a victory, Tom."

Harry's throat was dry. _Three armed wizards and an underage witch,_ he thought, _against Voldemort and about fifty Death Eaters…_

The cloaked and hooded figures still slowly milled around the room, each trying to get a better view of the interaction, whilst trying to maintain what they deemed a safe distance from the enraged wizard. Occasionally a new Death Eater would emerge from one of the doors and stop to witness the scene that it may or may not have expected.

"Your opinion of me is surely not so noble as to expect fair play," Voldemort was saying past a malevolent grin. "I play to win."

A Death Eater sidled up to the one flanking Harry, and said something in a deep hoarse whisper, to which the man slightly dipped his head and moved aside, allowing the new hooded figure to move next to Harry, to closely guard him in his stead. Harry felt the acrid breath of the first Death Eater on his neck as the man shuffled off.

The torchlight on the walls didn't allow for daylight clarity, and Harry was glad he could not see the lurid faces of the men. The Death Eater at his side now was only a little taller than he was, but hunched suspiciously.

Harry stiffened in wary panic as he felt the tip of a wand press against his back. So that was Voldemort's plan, Harry realised. To keep Dumbledore preoccupied with the 'Dark Lord' himself, leaving Harry open to be smote!

As panic welled within him, Harry felt the wand tip travel slowly down his back, as if his captor was casually speculating where to strike him. To his surprise, the wand continued to travel slowly down until it was in his palm, and then nervous fingers were wrapping his own tightly around the end. Harry now recognised it as the handle, not the tip, and to his increasing surprise, recognised it as his own.

Harry gasped quietly, and dared a look at the new robed figure – he couldn't see much of a face in the starkly supplied light of the room, but he didn't need much to illuminate that notorious white hair.

Somewhere beneath his shock and his struggle to comprehend, Harry was thankful that neither Ron nor Hermione had made any noise to give away what had just happened – though surely they must have seen it.

Dumbledore and Voldemort were still in the midst of a heated sparring, but Harry was now only dimly aware of it, as Draco muttered almost silently toward Harry's ear, "Hide it."

Harry didn't have much need or inclination to question the order. After all, as long as Voldemort thought he was unarmed, so much the better. Harry managed to get the wand to slide up his sleeve – after a bit of awkward shuffling that he was terrified would be noticed – where it was sufficiently kept from sight but was still easily able to be wielded at a moment's notice.

Only minutes after this exchange, the first Death Eater emerged again from a neighbouring room and glided over to Harry. As he approached, Draco – unidentified under his hood – dipped his head and moved submissively from them as the former again took his place. Harry's eyes followed Draco's slow and disguised exit from the room, waiting for a reassurance, for _anything_, that may signify a possible escape. But all he had by way of reassurance was the feeling of his wand pressed tightly against his arm, inside his sleeve.  A small consolation, but a definite improvement on the previous state of things.

With a hitch of his breath, Harry realised that Voldemort and Dumbledore had stopped talking. If 'talking' was an adequate word to describe it. All was now still and quiet in anticipation of whatever was to come next. Even the Death Eaters had stilled in their tracks.

Voldemort struck first.

"Stupify!"

For a terrifying moment, Harry felt captured under the restriction of the curse as his muscles seized, but then he realised it had not been directed at him, but toward the Weasleys – one of the twins had promptly deflected it. The fear that had rendered Harry's limbs motionless now spurred him into action as in one fluid movement he slid his wand down into his hand, whipped around, and stunned the Death Eater who had been closely flanking him.

Now that he was facing Ron and Hermione, he saw that they too had their wands returned, although this was doing little to calm them, obviously. Harry supposed Draco must have returned their wands to them when Harry received his own.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, it amazed Harry how so many thoughts and feeling could be experienced in less than a moment. Even as Voldemort was drawing his wand, Harry was terrified, to be sure, of the many enemies outnumbering them – surely even Dumbledore couldn't fight all of them; he was relieved to have his friends and Dumbledore with him; confusion regarding Draco Malfoy, and now Tony; desperate hope that he and his school associates would live through this; and the terrible heavy cold feeling that told him he didn't have a chance.

Harry was panicked, blindly sending spells out wherever he saw a hood, waiting for when it would all end for him. _This wasn't how it was supposed to end,_ he thought.

A spell from somewhere Harry didn't see caused a Death Eater in front of him to fall backward, winding Harry and knocking his jaw. He felt his teeth clack together and a thick coppery taste pooled in the front of his mouth.

"Ron, behind you!" Harry called, spitting small flecks of blood past his cry.

Ron turned abruptly to see one of the many hooded figures descend upon him. He cried out and aimed a spell in retaliation, but Harry couldn't tell if the result that knocked out Ron's adversary was from Ron himself, or a rescue-mission from Hermione.

_How long has the fight been going on, now?_ Harry wondered. It seemed ages – but probably was only a few seconds. _Any second now…_

A massive sound of an explosion sounded somewhere off to Harry's right, and the fighters were momentarily thrown into disarray. In this moment of weakness, a loud voice boomed out authoritatively, "Totus caecus excludo leo!"

What happened next took Harry completely by surprise, and he was once again amazed by Dumbledore's display of immense knowledge of magic.

He could almost see a filmy substance – like the surface of a bubble – quickly spread from Dumbledore's wand to promptly cover the room and all its inhabitants, before it became totally undetectable.

Harry blinked to clear his vision. It had been momentarily hindered before being rectified, but even now, everything in front of him was strangely surreal, blurred around the edges, and as if everyone was moving underwater.

The opposition seemed to be worse off. Harry's observations of their action and speech led him to believe they could not see at all. He saw one Death Eater was stumbling along blindly, hands outstretched as if he was walking in complete darkness, his wand uselessly held at the ready. Further inspection of the scene showed his other enemies to be acting similarly, Voldemort himself in a rage at his handicap.

Harry could see Dumbledore making his way through hoards of Death Eaters to approach the blinded Tony, but whatever punishment he was inflicting on her was obscured from Harry's vision by a wandering Death Eater. _She deserves everything she gets_, Harry thought bitterly.

"Harry!" called Hermione, and she drew up next to him. "What's happened?"

"I don't know!" he cried loudly, and the effect momentarily flickered – for a short while, his friend was more in focus, before being returned to the surreal state.

This fluctuation had apparently worked to the advantage of the Death Eaters too, as some of them had turned into the general direction of Dumbledore and of Harry to fire curses.

"Quickly, move!" Harry called, and he grabbed Hermione's arm as he began to run to a relatively still spot. "Can you see?!"

"Only a little!" Hermione responded, sounding a little panicked. "It's all blurry!"

"They look like they can't see anything at all!"

"But why-"

"Quickly," a voice interrupted in quiet command, and the two looked up to see Dumbledore, with the four Weasleys in tow. "Follow me."

The old man headed quietly for a small door at the far side of the room, motioning to his followers to keep quiet.

No sooner were they out of the door when boisterous activity resumed within the large room they had just left. Harry concluded they had regained their sight, since his own was now normal, which didn't leave them much time to escape. Surely it wouldn't be long before Death Eaters were inspecting every exit.

As they scurried away from the great room, down a dimly lit hall, Harry saw Dumbledore look at a contraption on his wrist, which Harry could only assume to be an unusual sort of watch. After about a minute of rounding corners and ducking into side rooms, when voices could be dimly heard and fast approaching, Dumbledore gathered Harry, Hermione and the four Weasleys around him and instructed them to hold onto him as he slipped an object into his bare hand from inside his robes.

A tug from behind Harry's navel brought him spinning away from the scene of destruction, and the outraged dark wizard.

When the life-saving transportation stopped, Harry found he had never been so pleased to see The Burrow in his life.

The first thing Harry noticed in the friendly environment of the Weasley home, was Mrs Weasley worriedly hurrying them all to sit down in the kitchen while she peppered them with anxious questions, and Mr Weasley looking serious in his seat at the table.

The second was Trina and Tony sitting alongside him.

Within moments, both he and Ron had their wands out, while Hermione was looking sufficiently shocked and suspicious.

"Sit down children, please," goaded Mrs Weasley, and she tried to heard them toward the table, but although Ginny and the twins obeyed, the trio would have none of it.

"What's _she_ doing here?!" Ron said, accusingly.

"It seems some explaining is in order," Dumbledore said calmly as he obliged Mrs Weasley by taking a seat at the table while she bustled around the kitchen getting something to eat for them all. "I assure you, gentlemen, your wands are not necessary here."

Harry and Ron were dubious, but as Dumbledore was with them, they had no sensible reason to remain armed. After a moment's hesitation they slowly put their wands away and headed to the table to sit, but made sure they were as far away from Tony as possible.

Mrs Weasley laid plates of biscuits and slices on the table, and proceeded to lay out cups and spoons for tea. Nothing was discussed as she fetched a jug of milk, the kettle of boiled water, and bowls of sugar and teabags before settling herself at the table.

"Thankyou, Molly," Dumbledore said amicably as he reached for a biscuit. "It all looks absolutely delicious. And Harry, I meant to congratulate you on the new fashion – it quite becomes you." He pushed his own glasses up his nose as if to emphasise the fact he still dealt with the burden.

Harry could restrain himself no longer. "What's she doing here?" he heatedly repeated Ron's question.

Harry fidgeted impatiently as Dumbledore finished his mouthful of biscuit with a blissful expression on his face.

"Well now, how to start…" the old man finally mused to himself, his captive audience waiting on edge. To Harry's surprise, even Trina and Tony looked keen to hear.

Dumbledore looked at Harry and began, "You undoubtedly learned at some stage that your transferral to New Zealand was in error-"

"Yeah, Voldemort said that," Harry interrupted, and Mr and Mrs Weasley cringed at the name. "But he didn't look too upset about it."

"Undoubtedly, at the time, he was," Dumbledore surmised.

"He said he 'dealt with the one' that did it, or something," Hermione speculated.

"Quite," Dumbledore agreed.

"How does something like that happen by accident?" Mrs Weasley asked him, looking to be still quite in shock at the prospect of Ron being so far away.

"I should think it was an error in understanding," Dumbledore supplied. "It was most likely he had planned these students to be taken to a residence in England called Hastings – where he was currently staying – where they would be covered by a charm concealing their location, allowing him time to do whatever he wished. It would have been a mishap indeed when they were sent to the Hastings furthest away from him, and that his own concealment charm was protecting them from him."

"Blimey," Mr Weasley breathed.

"As you all would know," Dumbledore continued, "Voldemort is not one to sit back and moan at a failure, but to aggressively find ways to fix it. And it was with the help of their newfound companions that he managed to do it."

Wary looks were again aimed toward the two foreigners, who had the decency to look guilty – though Harry thought Tony didn't look nearly as guilty as she should.

"Be assured," Dumbledore said, "that neither of them were aware of their role. To their knowledge, they were just two ordinary muggles on a rather…unusual journey. Allow me to show you how Lord Voldemort crafted his success."

The old wizard withdrew a small flask from his robes, and laid it on the table in front of Tony. "If you would drink this, I'd be much obliged."

Tony looked as if she'd just been offered poison. "What is it?" she voiced hesitantly.

"It is a Revelare Potion," Dumbledore replied, although this information did nothing for Tony.

"I know what that is!" Ginny said enthusiastically. "Snape made us make it soon after they all left England, and I had to do a 3-foot long essay on it."

"Then _what_ on earth is it?" Ron asked exasperatedly. "Is anyone going to actually tell us?"

Dumbledore looked at Ginny, who hurriedly replied, "It reveals the mark of a traitor. Ancient kings in wizarding history used it. They'd make all their servants drink some, and the ones who had been posted as spies or assassins were shown as traitors, while all the other servants remained normal, and just felt like they'd had a rather refreshing blueberry juice."

"An excellent explanation, Miss Weasley," Dumbledore said, and Ginny glowed at his praise.

"Y'know, I don't like blueberry juice," Tony mumbled, nervously fingering the flask. "Not that I suppose that's a concern to anybody."

"So drink it already," Ron said bitterly, and his mother looked at him reproachfully.

Tony took one last wary glance at the flask before downing its contents, and making a grotesque face as she placed the empty bottle back on the table. "If anyone's interested, after that beverage, I _still_ don't like blueberry juice." The other people around the table continued to look at her expectantly.

"Thankyou," Dumbledore said to her. "Now if you would be so kind as to show us your arms."

Tony, beyond questioning now, shrugged off her jacket so it fell between her back and the chair, and laid her arms in front of her on the table.

A collective gasp was heard as the mark was shown on her forearm.

Harry saw it was similar to the Dark Mark, except it didn't look like a dark tattoo, but more like a shimmering whitish-gold apparition that would disappear at any moment.

"She's not been initiated as a Death Eater has she?" Mrs Weasley asked, incredulously.

Tony discreetly rolled her eyes and muttered sarcastically to Trina, "Yeah, he'd do that to a muggle. Because he's so culture tolerant."

"No, he has not done so," Dumbledore assured Molly Weasley.

"How did it work?" Arthur Weasley asked.

"This is a rather infrequently utilised spell – not even Ministry recognised," Dumbledore explained, "so, even for him, it was not so simple to trace them. I concluded that they must have stayed in Hastings for a week before moving on – that week must have been the most frustrating for Voldemort, as he would not have known for sure if the charm had worked. It was not until they left Hastings and he detected a shift that he knew the mark had been successfully placed."

"But how did he know me?" Tony asked. "I assume he doesn't memorise family lines of far-off muggles."

"He had no way of knowing you by name or face," agreed Dumbledore, "but nor did he need to. The mark was placed specifically on the host Harry interacted with on his arrival to Hastings. Which, naturally, turned out to be you."

"Yeah, we were staying at _your_ place the night they showed up," Trina reminded Tony.

"Lucky me," Tony replied glumly.

"But how did _you_ know, Professor?" inquired Ginny. "When we met you in the café you said that Trina was the reason you knew where Harry was."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore to the many inquisitive looks that had been sharply directed to him at this. "I had ventured a guess – anticipated, if you will – that Voldemort would use this means of tracing them, so I performed a similar charm. Obviously, I could not charm the same person without bringing risk of exposure to Voldemort of what I was doing, so I chanced the fact that his marked host would be with another – which, fortunately, she was."

"Whoa," said Trina, trying to comprehend. "So…I have a… a thing…mark…thing?"

"Not a visible one," Dumbledore smiled at her. And as you were not – unwittingly or otherwise – working against Harry, Hermione and Ron here, nothing would be displayed from the ingestion of the Revelare potion."

"Is there any other way to know?" Fred asked, and Harry presumed that he and his twin would doubtlessly be speculating what new spells and jokes they could make with the use of this new information.

"I boast a little when I say that my own mark is less conspicuous than that of Voldemort," Dumbledore said proudly. "Did you not see any signs of a mark – of discomfort, on Tony for the duration of your travels? Admittedly, it is likely they may have been subtle, since you had not suspected her of anything."

"Uh…" said Ron dumbly, as he tried to think of something.

Hermione had been lost in thought, before volunteering, "Tony, remember when you were taking ages to come back from that fountain you liked in Napier? I recall it vividly because we were all getting rather annoyed at you taking so long-"

"Why, thankyou," Tony interjected sarcastically.

"-but before you came back to the car, you ran water over the forearm that was marked, as if trying to cool it down."

"And you would occasionally rub or scratch your arm too," Trina said, "as if there was something irritating it, or tickling it."

Tony looked slightly frustrated as she said disbelievingly across the table, "And how is it that you notice and remember all this, but fail to pick up on the larger-than-life hints that would have told you I _wasn't_ the bad guy?! When Voldemort showed me to you, you didn't stop to think reasonably, did you?!"

"He did have a convincing argument," Hermione said guiltily, by way of explanation, "considering Draco was too young to have been initiated, so have a mark that would do it."

"Oh, of course," Tony replied, in mock apology. "And naturally, _his_ word is worth a _lot_."

"We're _sorry_!" Hermione said desperately, as if it would help.

"What about Trina's mark thingee?" Tony said. "What signs did she get?"

"Well…I don't know," said Hermione.

"Right," said Tony conclusively. "Bet you'd remember more if you thought she was the baddie. The closest you could probably get was the bird flying so close to her at Rainbow's End. If that had anything to do with it."

"Now, everyone," Mrs Weasley said in an effort to draw a close to the argument and tension regarding the marks. "Help yourselves to a biscuit."

"Wow, I'm trusted not to relay the secret biscuit recipe to Voldemort just because I have a bitter traitor's spirit…" Tony said scathingly.

Mrs Weasley looked sorely tempted to say something of discipline to Tony, but considering present company and the fact she didn't know her, she refrained.

"So what else happened?" Mr Weasley was intensely interested the Gryffindor three's time with the muggles.

"We stayed in a motel for a bit," Hermione supplied. "Then in was pretty much non-stop up to Auckland – that was the last place we were at before we came back over here. We came back just when Harry and Draco were going down Fear Fall-"

"What on earth is that?!" Mrs Weasley asked, alarmed. "That doesn't sound safe."

"It was fine, Mum – just a ride at a park," Ron appeased her.

"And you all just disappeared partway through this ride?"

"Well…yeah. Come to think of it, I guess it would have caused a disturbance when two people high in the air just disappeared, and people on the ground, too."

"I don't reckon you'll have anything worry about," Tony said, apathetically. "They'll do what muggles have always done throughout history. They'll search for bodies and scientific explanations, and when they don't find any, they'll put it down to aliens. Easy."

"We didn't actually all go back at the same time," Trina said. "I mean, you three and Draco did-"

"Probably a reversal charm," interjected Hermione.

"-but we were taken over separately. I must have been first, because I didn't see Tony go. When I found myself with Dumbledore and Tony didn't show up, I presumed she was still in New Zealand. So I'm just finding stuff out now, too."

"And anyway," said Ron, "then we ended up in a castle, where we came up against Voldemort-"

Molly Weasley gasped loudly at the thought.

"-but Dumbledore came, and got us all out, and now we're here."

"Indeed," Dumbledore, who had been largely quiet, agreed. "And I'm thoroughly relieved I was able to do so."

"What exactly happened in there?" Harry asked. "I mean, the fighting hadn't gone on long before there was a massive bang, and you cast some sort of spell."

"The bang was us," George said proudly. "Popping Fizzy-Pebbles. We've used them before as a distraction."

"Distraction for what, exactly?" prompted Hermione. "What was the spell?"

"Ah, yes, I was rather proud of it," Dumbledore said, smiling triumphantly. "Although it was rather difficult, and it had been a long time since I've used it."

"Is that why it flickered a bit?"

"Well, perhaps, but it is a difficult spell to maintain, for anybody."

"So why could some of us see – although not very well, and some people not at all?" Ron asked.

"The words," Hermione said, half to herself. "What were they? _Totalus…?"_

"Totus caecus excludo leo," Dumbledore supplied amicably, interested to hear her dissection of the phrase.

"Caucus has something to do with blindness, I'm sure…" Hermione mused. "I remember reading about it."

"Oh, really?" George said, feigning surprise. "We never saw _that_ coming!"

Hermione ignored him as she continued, "Totus caecus…total blindness…or blindness to all…" Harry and Ron looked at each other in resignation as their friend continued to display the habit of showing academic brilliance. "…excludo leo… to exclude-"

"Excluding lions?" Ron said, quizzically.

"Of course," Hermione said, in an explanation to say she'd figured it out. "Leo! Lion! That's the symbol of Gryffindors! Everyone was struck with blindness, excluding the Gryffindors!"

Dumbledore looked down at her through his half-moon glasses, as he congratulated her, "Yes, once again, Miss Granger, you display remarkable promise."

Hermione glowed.

"Lucky no past Gryffindors became Death Eaters," Ron said. "Not that they would."

"Death Eaters aren't all Slytherins, Ron," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, I know that, but Gryffindors have a bit more pride and sense than the rest."

Mrs Weasley looked unsure of what to say in censure to her son, but she needn't have worried at all, as Dumbledore said, "Your house loyalty is admirable, young Mr Weasley, but I'm sure there would have been Gryffindors among their number. Even the bravest man is lured by power – sometimes even more so than others. We were merely fortunate there were minimal members of that house in our adversaries."

Ron scowled a little at being corrected, and bit down stubbornly into a biscuit.

"So, girls," Mr Weasley said to Trina and Tony after a pregnant pause by all at the table, "tell me about this Michael Jackson who dances a walk on the moon…"

"Where's Malfoy now?" Ron was saying as he clambered along his bed to sit at the end, and Harry sat across from him on the spare. Hermione sat in silence on a chair in the corner. "Dumbledore didn't say anything about him."

Harry mused on the fact that Dumbledore did indeed have a very irritating habit of leaving out the facts of most interest.

"Surely he's not on our side," Ron continued. "I mean, he may not be totally evil – as much as I never want to hear myself admit that ever again – but, he's Malfoy! He doesn't just join the side of the light, and fight for goodness, and peace, and…and puppies… Harry?"

Harry's glazed eyes snapped to attention and he looked at his friend. "I don't know what the story is with Malfoy. It all got so confusing ever since we came back here. Well, ever since we left, really."

"He's not our friend, though," Ron stated, and although Harry noted this was bordering on an insult and may not have been deserved, he was still inclined to agree.

"I wonder where he is?" Harry said quietly, almost to himself.

"Probably ensuring his reputation in Voldemort's circle hasn't been tarnished, and his Death Eater initiation's still scheduled."

"Your faith overwhelms," came a voice from the door, and the two boys looked up to see Draco Malfoy framed in the doorway, his face neutrally lacking expression. "Remind me to choose a better investment, should I ever decide to make Gryffindor friends."

"Malfoy-" Harry started in apology, before Draco interrupted him.

"Anyway, you're to come back downstairs. Dumbledore and the others are finished talking." Draco turned to walk back down the stairs to the dining room, and the other two boys hurriedly made to follow him.

" 'The others' including you, right?" Harry began. "So, what were you talking about?"

Draco didn't reply, but continued down the stairs, and made his way over to sit at the table.

Harry saw that Mr Weasley, Trina, and Tony were no longer there, and the other three Weasley children came in from the garden to sit at the table. "Where'd the others go?"

"I didn't see it as necessary that the two girls needed to stay. After all, our discussions would probably bore them," said Dumbledore.

Harry doubted it. Dumbledore just had a frustrating history of only talking to people that needed to know something.

"They are, as I speak, settling into a very comfortable lodging just outside of London," the old wizard continued as his audience sat. "I've been there myself. Lovely cinnamon rolls."

Harry and Ron only looked at each other. Even after all these years, Dumbledore's oddities never failed to astound.

"This is likely to be news to you three recent arrivals – as young Mr Malfoy now knows too – but I am unable to escort you back into Hogwarts."

Hermione looked up in shocked surprise. "What do you mean?!"

"Since your departure from us," Dumbledore continued to inform them, "the school has been put under Ministry organization, making me no longer headmaster."

"You've been fired?" Ron screeched.

"It is an unfortunate state of things, but I have every confidence that it will soon be rectified…if you would be so kind as to help."

"What?" Harry said enthusiastically. "Anything!"

"I have spoken to Draco regarding the plan of action. He can fill you in on the way."

"On the way?" Hermione asked. "We're going now? So…we're just going to walk in?"

"Not on your own, naturally," Dumbledore said. "And certainly not in so bold a way as you imply."

"Then who-?"

Harry realised just who, even before the notorious greasy voice came from the direction of the fireplace.

_A/N: I'm on the way to getting this thing wound up. At this stage, I anticipate just one chapter to go – unless the drama gets away with me and it goes on for a bit longer._

_Thanks again to all those who email me to say how much they like the story and encourage me to keep going – those messages are reassuring to get, and usually result in my keenness to post new chapters faster._


	17. Happily Ever After

**Chapter 17: Happily Ever After**

Harry hadn't been overjoyed to see Professor Snape emerge from the Weasley's fireplace, and the man's current demeanour was doing nothing to change that. Snape's dislike for Harry obviously hadn't appeased since his absence, as it was apparent that he saw his task of escorting the students back to school as nothing short of a babysitting job.

"Potter, do stop fidgeting in that tent you call a shirt," he said tartly over his shoulder as he walked ahead of them down a house-lined street. "It's irritating in the extreme."

Molly Weasley had lent some of Ron's clothes to Harry, as the clothes that he had been wearing since being in New Zealand (a status only several hours behind them, Harry realised with surprise) were well overdue for a wash, according to her. Ron's clothes weren't as uncomfortable as the clothes of his cousin Dudley, and they were certainly not as big, but the foreign feeling still caused him to uncomfortably finger the cuffs of the sleeves as they walked along. Ron's height meant that the ends of his shirtsleeves reached to Harry's knuckles. Hermione wouldn't have been the right size to borrow any of Ginny's clothes, Molly had realised, so had only been able to offer her another biscuit, in apology. Hermione had assured her that it was alright, and along with the four youngest Weasley children, Harry, and Draco, she was ushered out the door with Professor Snape.

Draco had been unusually silent during their walk with the Professor, Harry noted. He wished the boy would say something – ever since the event of having Harry's wand returned to him, there had been an urgent need in Harry's mind to correctly conclude the whereabouts of Draco's loyalties. Despite past nastiness, Harry didn't want to put him down as 'evil' if it was now no longer justified.

"We're not _walking_ to Hogwarts, surely," Ron said. "I mean, even on the train it takes a while. And this isn't the way to the station anyway. So where are we going?"

"Such an astute deduction Weasley," started Snape, "hardly offers your intellect credit. As to where we are headed, it is merely a place where you may sort yourselves out before we enter the school."

Ron obviously didn't find this answer satisfactory, as his face furrowed in confusion, but he didn't think it was worth it to ask for clarification.

Harry's musings almost resulted in him walking straight into the Professor, who had stopped suddenly in front of a dull-green dusty door that had its paint flaking off at the edges. Snape rapped sharply on the door and waited in tight-lipped silence for a response.

Within a few seconds, Harry could hear footsteps approaching from inside, and the door quickly opened, following a disturbed-dust arc on the floor inside. Harry supposed that if Mrs Weasley saw it, she'd take only seconds to reach for a broom whilst commenting loudly on the lack of effort taken to keep the house at a respectable living standard.

The face of none other than Mr Weasley showed itself on the other side of the door, and he quickly stepped aside and motioned for Professor Snape to follow before retreating back from Harry's sight. Harry's mind spun with questions as he wordlessly followed Snape inside, the rest of the group coming in behind him.

Harry found he had walked into a fairly large room that had a long wooden unpolished table standing in the centre. Eight pale green wooden chairs squatted around it, each with a paint job similar to the door they'd just come through. It appeared to Harry that the room wasn't often used, as upkeep seemed mediocre at best. This idea was further prompted as he noted that there were no items in the cupboards – at least, not that he could see. Some of the cupboards – which lined the top of one wall near the ceiling – had their front hanging idly away from the latch, displaying their yawning emptiness. The bare counters along two walls joined in the deserted scene's silence.

"Sorry about the state of things here," Mr Weasley said as he came in from an adjoining room, holding a tall stool that he put at one corner of the table next to another chair, and sat on it in a silent invitation for the others to sit also. "It's a home that's been vacated a while now and won't sell – the Ministry have plans to make it into an off-site meeting place."

Harry took a seat between Hermione and one of the twins, and looked around expectantly for an explanation as to why they were here. His quizzical expression was mirrored in all faces around him but for Snape's and Mr Weasley's.

"Now, you three," Mr Weasley started, indicating Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Your clothes and belongings have been removed from Hogwarts and are in a room down the hall. I can take you there later."

Harry's eyebrows shot into his hairline as he speculated the implication of this. Was he no longer a student of Hogwarts?

"I would assume it was believed that you were unlikely to return," Mr Weasley said.

"What about Malfoy?" Ron piped up. "Why wasn't he assumed dead? He was taken too!"

"Yes, well, his safety was not so much in question. Now, as you'll remember-" Arthur Weasley cut off suddenly, and looked at Professor Snape. "If I may, Professor Snape…?"

The professor seemed to not mind Mr Weasley dominating the conversation at this point, and he said as much in a consenting nod, so Ron's father continued, "As you'll remember, Dumbledore has been removed from his post, the school is officially run by the Ministry of Magic, and someone had been posted in his stead, to represent the Ministry and its decisions. The representative is Lucius Malfoy."

Harry just about choked on his breath. Hogwarts, under Lucius Malfoy? Even if Draco wasn't an arch antagonist after all, his father certainly was. Draco didn't seemed to be too perturbed by the news – even though a light frown furrowed his brow – so Harry presumed he would have found this out while he was talking with Dumbledore back at The Burrow.

"What?!" Ron reacted disbelievingly. "Lucius Malfoy! How could the Ministry let _him_ do it?"

"Of course, it was not a unanimous decision," Mr Weasley continued, addressing them all. "I, for one, was opposed. But it was the general consensus that Mr Malfoy possessed the qualities of a man meant for a high post, and that his connections with the Ministry were sufficient to allow him the position – he is one of the 12 governors, after all."

"Why did someone not protest it? What's happened to Hogwarts because of it?" Hermione asked, a note of panic in her voice.

"I haven't made a complaint again the decision," Mr Weasley said, "because it was apparent that it was a final call, and protest would be futile, and may have even resulted in my dismissal. I have remained on a relatively neutral ground for the purposes of receiving information about the school and its management, in order for me to report information to Dumbledore, as it seems necessary. Unfortunately of course, he is not in a position to do anything about what is done by Lucius, but some of us feel it is to our great advantage if he remains informed, since surely it is only a matter of time before he regains the post as headmaster. So we hope."

"Well, what's happened?" Harry pushed.

"Besides Slytherin winning every Quidditch game with a variety of cheats," Fred interjected.

"And getting loads of undeserved house points," added George, and Snape scowled at him but said nothing.

"Well, actually," Mr Weasley said, looking a little confused himself, "we haven't received complaints for anything."

"But…" Harry said. "Surely…"

"Regardless," Mr Weasley began again, "it has been decided amongst the minority at the Ministry – the ones that didn't vote for Lucius Malfoy to be representative Headmaster – that it wasn't Dumbledore's fault that you four were taken by You-Know-Who. Some of us are certain that Lucius even helped orchestrate it, although we have no proof to present to the Minister yet."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he did," Harry said, but he had the decency to look a little ashamed at his voicing the accusation so assuredly in front of Draco, considering recent developments.

Draco looked a little surprised to see this display of conscience for his benefit, but didn't voice a reaction. He still remained quiet, just listening to the conversation around him. Harry thought this was unusual for him – even _if_ he had renounced his former loyalties. Surely he'd be putting in his opinion, especially as they were discussing his father. Unless this had all already been covered in his discussion with Dumbledore. Harry again wondered how that conversation had ended.

"So what were you talking about with Dumbledore before we came down into your dining room again?" Harry asked Mr Weasley. "Have you figured out what to do about it? Dumbledore said something like that, and that the plan will need our help."

"Ah, yes, well, about that…" Mr Weasley contemplated how to phrase his answer. "We did discuss that, and Snape here said he had already begun preparation to overthrow Lucius, and that he could aid an infiltration into Hogwarts, avoiding a trap of some sort Lucius may have utilised. Some of us though, doubt the subtlety of such a plan." Mr Weasley looked rather embarrassed as he said this, as he'd effectively implied that they would most likely draw unwanted attention to themselves and destroy hope of erecting the former state of things.

"Well, George!" Fred said indignantly to his brother. "What shall we make of that? Our own father, convinced we'll wreck everything!"

"Yes, well," Mr Weasley said quickly, in an effort to defend himself. "It was just a thought…"

"You two aren't known for being inconspicuous and discreet anyway," Hermione pointed out, with a patronising frown.

"That's only because we make a conscious _point_ of being loud and disruptive!" George defended himself. "We're not rampaging hippogriffs!"

"Some people would beg to differ," Snape's ominous voice cut through the heated debate, and Draco smirked at the comment. Harry probably would have seen this as a negative thing if he hadn't smiled at it too.

"Brian Zambini has been made the practising Potions Professor," Snape continued in his casual drone. "I have reason to believe he has used this as a factor in ensuring student cooperation within the school."

Puzzled looks met him.

"That said, I believe it will be foolish for all seven of you to accompany me into the school while Lucius Malfoy is in the position of Headmaster. I would sooner take in a Dementor."

"What?" Harry said. "Well, who then? Why did we all come here if we can't go into the school? Who's going to help get Lucius out?"

"If you would calm yourself for a moment, Potter," Snape replied, sneering, "you may see some progress." He surveyed the rest of them before continuing. "The ones that don't come with me initially will remain here with Arthur Weasley to aid him, before joining us at the school."

"So we're all going in eventually, then," Ginny surmised.

"As such," the professor continued as if she hadn't spoken, "you will all need to take these." He reaching into an inside pocket of his outer robe and withdrew a small black cloth bundle that had been rolled up. Placing it on the table, he slowly began to unroll it, and at each turn a small vial of light-blue liquid was shown. He soon had a number of the vials standing before him on the table.

"One each will be sufficient to last," he said. "The remaining vials are not intended for you."

"What is it?" Ron said, looking at it uncertainly.

"What it _is_, is by no means as important as what it will _do_, Weasley," Snape responded impatiently. "I will require you to all take a vial now so as to give it time to come to effect thoroughly, before entering Hogwarts."

Like those around him, Harry reached forward to grasp one of the tiny vials in his hand and pull it to him. The glass was cool against his palm, and the blue potion inside had faint white cloud tendrils drifting within it. The prospect of having an unidentified potion 'come to effect thoroughly' inside him wasn't very reassuring.

He popped the stopper from the neck of the vial and hesitantly let the first drops of the potion fall onto his tongue. It didn't have any particular taste that Harry could identify to anything; only an initial heat that cooled quickly. Harry swallowed the rest of it, and laid his empty vial in front of him, hoping that the professor hadn't poisoned him out of pure spite and dislike.

Seeing Harry take the potion, the students surrounding him followed suit, and soon Snape was collecting the empty vials from around the table.

"What exactly are we going to be doing?" Harry asked. "You can't keep that information from us – we'll have to know _that_."

Snape smiled derisively. "In this instance, _you_, Potter, will have a relatively small role. It is a relief that the hero of a crisis around here _isn't_ you, for a change."

To Harry's relief, Snape made no mention of Cedric Diggory. Harry couldn't have been held responsible for his actions, had that card been played. It was rather a sore point with him, as he still received accusations of trying to steal glory from the Hufflepuff, even after Cedric was killed at Voldemort's hand, which Harry masochistically saw as his own fault.

"So who's saving the world, then?" Harry said, bitterly.

"You'll forgive me when I say I find ample satisfaction in announcing that not only will you stand down as hero in this instance, but that it will be taken up by a Slytherin." Snape smirked snidely at him.

His opening words made Harry bristle more than the ending. Harry could give the man credit for wishful thinking, if anything.

"Now, uh, Professor Snape," Mr Weasley finally brought himself to bring a stop to the dialogue, "surely that is over what is necessary."

The professor obviously was not partial to being censured. "That would depend on perspective, now, wouldn't it, Mr Weasley?"

So Draco Malfoy was going to do something big? Harry mused. _That would account for his uncharacteristic silence. They must have discussed the plan thoroughly with Dumbledore_ _for Draco to be this anxiously preoccupied. _It still frustrated him that he didn't know what it was. He was sure Snape was thoroughly enjoying being able to lord this impending victory over Harry's head as a Slytherin-win. Rather childish, really. Especially for a professor.

"I see no reason for further delay," Snape said, as if it was the students' fault that things had taken as long as they had. "Go to your things – change out of those ridiculous clothes that obviously don't fit you, Potter – and be ready to come with me. Draco, we leave now."

Neville Longbottom took a seat in that morning's Potions Class, with the same contented apathy that they all did, now. If he had much inclination to reflect on recent happenings, he would have noticed that conflicts within the student body had drastically decreased since the new management, and that despite Slytherin's coincidental recent spiel of victories, inter-house relations had reached a relatively peaceful level of cooperation.

But as things were, the only thing he noticed was that Brian Zambini was late today.

Even as this thought passed through his mind, Brian Zambini strode into the dungeon, his elegant dark attire of his first day still making the girls look at him in appreciation.

"Good morning, class," Zambini said. "I have decided to have us make a potion different from what I told you yesterday. So for those that looked up the properties of the potion I had mentioned, to put themselves at a prudent advantage, I will now see how your skills display themselves when they are not given the benefit of foreknowledge. Despite having lunchtime fast approaching, I expect you to give me your full attention."

It had not occurred to Neville to give anything less, as he and all the students around him were obediently picking up their quills to write down the instructions that Zambini put on the board.

Lucius Malfoy was quite content, truth be told. His responsibilities had been considerably lighter than he had anticipated, so after a fulfilling lunch in the Great Hall, he had been in relatively good spirits when he agreed to meet Brian Zambini.

As he waited, he sat back in what had been Dumbledore's chair, as he surveyed the office yet again, still priding himself on his new position. Three years ago he had been sufficiently pleased when he had had Dumbledore renounced – albeit for a short time – but to be given the position in his stead gave Lucius a sadistic pleasure second only to that indulged in by the Dark Lord whom he served.

As a self-satisfied smile pulled at the corner of his lips, a knock was heard at the door, and Brian Zambini ventured inside at Lucius' invitation.

"Good afternoon, Professor Zambini," he started. "Settled in your new position? I trust the students are cooperative."

"Oh, certainly," Brian Zambini replied, as he stood in front of Lucius' desk. "But of course…we both knew that could be relied upon."

"Well, sit down," Lucius said, "there's no reason for you to stand."

Zambini took a seat, glancing back at the door that was left slightly ajar.

"Yes, I'm very pleased with the student co-operation," Lucius continued. "If that old fool Dumbledore and the bumbling Ministry weren't so puffed up on legalities, they could have utilised the means long ago. That certainly would have eliminated a lot of complications."

"I marvel, though, at your confidence that your…means, won't eventually be discovered and penalised."

Lucius gave a short indignant laugh. "There is no cause for that – who would report it? The regularly dispensed Modica Sedo Potion, naturally, is an Imperius of such a mild form that it is not witnessed by outsiders as a breach of regular etiquette, but effective enough to sedate the students into a state of acceptance of our terms."

Zambini shifted in his chair. "You see this as an indefinite practice then?"

"Well, as long as it works…" Lucius let his reply trail off through a smirk, in answer to what he obviously saw as a rhetorical question. "The students certainly have no aversion to having it served as a beverage each dinnertime, instead of pumpkin juice. I always did think that was rather nasty, myself."

"It does provide a variety," Zambini agreed.

"And your role in creating it is of great service to the school," Lucius said, still leading the conversation. "The Dark Lord will no doubt see you are given a justified reward."

Zambini seemed to fidget at this thought, and he took a step into directing the conversation elsewhere. "You do not anticipate Dumbledore finding a way to return?"

"There is no way he would be accepted here as headmaster anymore," Lucius said, pleased. "As far as the Ministry and the general public is concerned, his defences are slack, and leave all the students open to be the Dark Lord's pickings. It is only our Lord's inner circle that know of our influence in bringing about the rather artistic capture."

"And what of the Potter boy, and the others taken? Do you see their return interfering with your plan?"

"I would be very surprised if they return at all," Lucius admitted with a smile. "Naturally, I would expect the arrival of my son, once he has aided the Dark Lord as he can, but the Gryffindors would not stand long under the Dark Lord's eye."

Zambini looked pensive. "You are certain your son will live up to this?"

For the first time that day, Lucius mood darkened and he ominously leaned forward. "Are you suggesting he would fall short of what is obviously his path? Of course he will work for our Lord! I have brought him up with the priorities of one of us, and I'm proud of how it has worked."

"I'm sorry, Headmaster," Zambini said, guiltily dipping his eyes to the floor. "I didn't mean to imply…that he wasn't." He nervously started picking at the end of his sleeve.

"Hmm," Lucius grunted, semi-satisfied with the response, though still incredulous at the suggestion. He leaned back against his chair, and the room was settled in silence following the exchange.

Sound of student activity in the lunch hour filtered quietly from the grounds through the chink in the door, and the two men listened involuntarily to the sounds wafting up to them. The quiet buzz of chatter and occasional bout of casual laughter permeated the air, before they were overridden with the unusual sound of argument. As moments passed, more voices joined in the student sparring, until the definite sounds of fierce and independent rebuttal were heard.

Lucius' brow furrowed as he contemplated what this meant. "What-?" He stood.

"That brings me to my purpose in coming to see you," Brian Zambini quickly said, also standing, still nervously picking at the end of his sleeve.

"What's going on?" Lucius demanded. "They're supposed to be docile! Did you not make the potion strong enough last time? That could be disastrous!"

"You have remade the curriculum-"

"_We_, Zambini," Lucius corrected.

"Yes, certainly, _we _re-made the curriculum to ensure the students receive minimal arms with which they can use against us – hence the decision to use the Modica Sedo Potion."

"What of it?"

"Today I deterred."

"What!" Lucius' voice darkened again, and Zambini's hands started to shake with nervousness.

"I abandoned the curriculum in favour of teaching and administering th-…the Contego Potion…"

Lucius was momentarily speechless. "How _dare_…why you would _do_…!" Speechless anger prevented him from being able to move or even articulate a sentence.

Zambini glanced desperately at the door. "I saw to it that it was also distributed with the students' lunch just recently – although those not in my class may not yet be displaying its effects."

"…_deliberately_ undo the effects put in place…" Lucius was still spitting his rage. As if finally realising he would be unable to sufficiently put together a sentence, he resorted to fitfully pulling his wand from it's sheath in his serpent-headed cane, and pointing it at Zambini's chest.

Brian Zambini looked desperate now, gripped with panicked fear, but although he stood his ground he turned his face away to the floor and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the punishing strike. _Where were they?_

Suddenly he heard a shuffling, and he opened his eyes to see a number of finely-clad feet rush past him to apprehend Lucius. He looked up to see members of the Ministry surrounding them, one having called a charm to disarm the new headmaster of his wand. _There they are, and almost too late._

Lucius recognised his captors followed by Hermione and a small gathering of Weasleys, and looked incredulously at the new Potions master as Ministry members fired routine comments toward him. "I never would have thought that _you,_ Brian Zambini, didn't have the heart that has been noble in your family for generations!"

"He does," Zambini replied, still fearful, but a little less shaky since the arrival of the Ministry. "He performed your evil services, after all."

Lucius narrowed his eyes at Zambini quizzically, in an effort to understand.

As he watched, the traitorous professor began to shrink, as if melting into the floor, and the sharp contours of his face smoothed out. The robes were now hanging off him rather hugely, and Lucius continued to see the final transformations of someone leaving the effects of the Polyjuice Potion – 'Zambini' stood mute as his dark hair settled limply around his face and paled, his eyes lightened a little, and his skin grew fairer, before finally Draco Malfoy was standing in front of the convicted headmaster, and Lucius realised he had been betrayed by his son.

"They have Zambini already," Draco said, inclining his head toward the Ministry members, and his voice was back to his own now that he'd resigned Zambini's face. "Minus a bit of hair. I borrowed that, of course."

If Lucius had been speechless before, it was nothing to what he was now. Somehow, beyond his confusion, he managed to utter, "Draco…?" before he was roughly herded out the door by his captors.

Even after Lucius had left, Draco remained standing in front of the large desk, looking rather pitiful in Zambini's oversized robes that puddled around his feet.

"Mr Draco Malfoy?" a voice came from the door as a Ministry member addressed him. Draco did not turn around, but just slowly sat back down in a disbelieving shock, still blindly staring at the vacated desk. "You'll not be charged, you know. We now have witnesses who can affirm you are not working in association with Lucius."

Upon seeing he wasn't going to receive a response, the Ministry worker left, leaving Draco alone in his silence.

Even when a shimmering in the corner revealed a dumbfounded Harry Potter from under his Invisibility Cloak, Draco did not say a word.

He just wept.

"What happened after we left, Harry?" Ron asked his friend when they were sitting at a sunny outdoor table of an outer-London café. "Hermione and I had to go with the Ministry after they got Lucius. We had to give an official statement, or something."

"Nothing really happened," Harry said, stirring his chocolate shake idly with a straw. "It was quiet for a long time afterward, before Dumbledore came back."

The four youngest Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione, had decided to meet at this café to talk about the recent conclusion of matters, and hopefully to meet Trina and Tony. Although Dumbledore hadn't given them an address of where the girls were staying, Harry was hoping to see them before they departed to enjoy the rest of their Overseas Experience. He was sure they would find him – he didn't think they would be very impressed at leaving without knowing how everything turned out.

"Do the muggles even know that we're here?" Fred asked. "There's not much point waiting for them otherwise."

"Well, I don't know," Harry admitted. "I mean, I told Dumbledore we were coming, back at Hogwarts, and I presume he told them. He wouldn't leave us hanging."

George looked doubtful. "He'd do anything if he was convinced he had a deep insightful reason to."

"Well do you see any strange blue-haired people about?" Fred asked, rhetorically, as he looked around them at the people milling past – all without an unusually coloured hairstyle.

Ginny strained her eyes. "There's one."

They all followed her line of sight before she corrected herself, "Oh, it's not Tony – that hair is purple."

"And looking rather gross," Ron said.

"Well, I guess people will do anything," Hermione said, as she looked at a young man passing them whose many peircings made him faintly resemble a heavily ornamented Christmas tree.

"Look!" Ron said, pointing. "Over by the corner of that building."

Two new figures – one with intentionally unruly blue hair – could be seen making their way towards the seated Hogwarts students. Harry waited until they had approached the café before venturing to speak to them.

"So Dumbledore told you where we were, then?"

"Not very well, though!" Tony remarked, looking distinctly unimpressed. "As good as he may be at dispensing morals, he could benefit from a tangible map."

"How have you been?" Hermione asked the two.

"It must have driven you mad, not knowing what was happening!" Ron guessed.

"Like you wouldn't believe!" Trina answered. "Let's go inside, to those couches. There's not enough room for all of us out here."

She turned to enter the café interior, and the other seven people followed her. An older couple had just left one of the couches, leaving them both available, so the youths hurried to sit on them before the comfortable places were occupied again. A café worker ambled over to clear the dishes of the couple who had left, and Tony looked at the people sitting around her with interest.

"Well are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked. "Or are you waiting for me to squeeze it out of you?"

"When did Dumbledore take you away?" Harry asked.

"It was just after you went upstairs, at Ron's place," Trina replied. "And Mrs Weasley sent Fred, George and Ginny into the garden for a while, so she and Mr Weasley could talk to Dumbledore."

"I was interested to know what they would talk about," Tony said, "but in that irritating way that only Dumbledore knows how, he told us we didn't need to hear it, then took us to some place ages away from anything familiar."

"Apparently it has great cinnamon rolls," Trina added. "We haven't tried them, but he seemed to think it would be some consolation."

"Well, Malfoy must have arrived – by floo powder presumably – just afterward," Hermione said. "Because when we came back downstairs he had been there for a while, talking with Dumbledore and Ron's parents. Ron's Dad had left by the time we got down there, but he would have talked with them for a while."

"Draco came? Or Lucius?"

"Oh, Draco. Lucius was headmaster at the school."

"Lucius was headmaster?!" Tony screeched. "Wow, it seems like Trina and I have been away for ages – so much to catch up on! You must have been really confused when Draco turned up! How is he? I mean, is he on any particular side, for sure, or is he still his sarcastic neutrally-placed self?"

"Oh, I think it's safe to say he's on a particular side," Harry said assuredly. "Even Ron would have to say so."

Ron nodded in confession, although he obviously still found the idea unusual.

"_Well_?" Trina said, her eyes almost bugging out. "You're drawing this out on purpose! Tell us already!"

Harry laughed a little, before continuing, "Draco went straight to Hogwarts with Snape, and I followed in my dad's Invisibility Cloak."

"He still refuses to lend us that," Fred said a little bitterly.

"What about the rest of you?" Trina asked.

"Well, obviously the Ministry wasn't prepared to believe that the man they'd placed as Headmaster was bad for the school," Hermione said. "Mr Weasley had already tried to convince them to perform a random check on proceedings – hoping they would discover malevolence when they did that – but the Minister told him there was nothing to worry about."

"For a while it looked like they were going to be hugely uncooperative," George said. "Dad needed as many of us as he could get to testify to them that something strange was happening – that's why only Draco and Harry went to Hogwarts. The rest of us needed to go with Dad to the Ministry to tell them."

"And they listened?"

"Not at first," Fred said. "Even with Dad's insistence, backed by five testimonies. In the end, Dad had to gamble his job to get them to come."

"He told them that if he was wrong," Ginny said, "they could fire him on the spot and he would leave quietly without making a fuss."

"Wow," Tony said. "He must have been sure they would find something, then."

"Well we knew something weird was happening," Ron said, "we just didn't know what. But Dad thought it was worth the risk. It all turned out alright anyway, and he's probably getting a raise!"

"So they came to talk to Lucius?" Trina asked.

"Oh, no," said Hermione. "Lucius is a very cunning man – he'd have said something to get himself off the hook and the Ministry off his trail, and Mr Weasley would lose his job."

"It was only when Dad volunteered to risk his job that they agreed to do it subtly," said Ginny. "We arranged for them to stand outside of the Headmaster's Office door, where they could hear everything."

Tony was on the edge of her seat, looking just about near throttling someone to get information. "What's 'everything'?"

"Well," Harry said, "that's where the stroke of sheer brilliance came in. Professor Snape had already begun preparing for Lucius' overthrow, we were told – I found out this was by his beginning to make Polyjuice Potion in time to be used yesterday."

"That's great stuff where it makes you-" Fred began.

"Yeah, yeah, we know what it does," Tony said. "We read about Harry using it in his second year. Go on, Harry."

The twins looked at Harry vaguely impressed with this new information, and the raven-haired boy continued, "Draco used it to impersonate Brian Zambini, who had been posted as the practising Potions Professor. Zambini, an ex-Slytherin and Blaise's older brother – had been making a potion regularly and giving it to the students, so they wouldn't complain about whatever Lucius did."

"The potion was a mild form of Imperius," Hermione enlightened them. "None of the students had freedom of thought to form their own opinions of Lucius' rules. They just were blinding accepting them."

"Whoa, that sounds really _Disturbing Behaviour,_" Trina said, in reference to a muggle movie. "I guess that was keeping the parents happy, if Hogwarts wasn't invaded again and the kids weren't complaining."

"Right, that was the point," Harry said. "Anyway, Snape somehow kidnapped Zambini-"

"He won't tell us how, of course," Ron interjected.

"-and finished the Polyjuice Potion by adding some of his hairs to it. Draco took the potion, and now looking like Zambini, took his Potions class in his place."

"He could pull that off?" Trina said, in impressed wonder.

"Potion always was his strong point," Hermione said. "He was really good at it. Snape favouring him over everyone else wasn't just because he was in Slytherin – he was genuine good at the subject, and well ahead of his year."

"He probably looks into it outside of regular school hours," Harry added. "So he was the best person to take the class – especially considering what he had to do next."

"And that was?" Tony pushed.

"Well, hang on, before we get to that," Harry said, and Tony sat back, frustrated. "Draco – looking like Zambini – didn't follow the schedule and instead made the class make a different potion."

"It was the one Snape made me, Fred and George make in one of our lessons at home," Ginny said. "He thought we would need it. It's the 'Contego' potion – it's a protection against deceptive influence. We took it just in case we somehow ingested whatever it was Lucius was using to bend everyone else to his will. In case it wasn't just a potion."

"I see," Trina said. "So you all took some of this before you went in?"

"Yeah," Harry affirmed. "And Draco made his class drink it, undoing whatever effects the mild Imperius potion still had after their last dose."

"It takes a short while to actually work," Ron said, "but by the time he'd made sure it was served at lunch to the rest of the students, his class had already been immunised."

"Cool," Tony said. "So Draco was like an undercover infiltration to undo his father's work?"

"Pretty much that," George said.

"Whoa."

"That was his big mission?" Trina asked.

"That was actually only part of it," Fred said.

"After lunch – at some point Draco would have taken another dose of Polyjuice to keep up the façade – he went to see Lucius in his office, still under the pretence he was Zambini."

"Yikes," Tony said. "Where was the real Zambini?"

"Snape wouldn't tell us," George said. "He probably thinks it wouldn't sound very professional for him to say he clocked Zambini over the head with a heavy object and dragged him into a dungeon!"

"So, anyway, Draco as Zambini went in to see his father, and he knew Ministry members were outside the door to listen to conversation, so he made sure to leave it slightly ajar for them to hear."

"Me, Hermione, Dad, Ginny, Fred and George were with them too," Ron said.

"At that point I was in the office too, under my dad's cloak. I'd snuck in behind Draco. He didn't really volunteer much information," Harry continued. "He let Lucius lead the conversation as best as he could, trying to direct it so the Ministry could hear him confess as much as possible."

Trina and Tony continued to look riveted as they listened to the story.

"The students that were now free of the curse were starting to make an uproar down on the grounds," Hermione narrated. "Lucius heard it, and knowing it was unusual, began to question Zamb-  well, Draco."

"Draco then told Lucius what he'd done, and I'm sure Lucius would have cursed him right there," Harry said. "It looked like he was about to, and I was half-inclined to do something, as the Ministry weren't coming. I had to force myself to stay under the cloak."

"Yeah, the bloody Ministry were taking their time," Ron said bitterly. "Even after hearing Lucius say all those things, they were still trying to convince themselves it wasn't true. They finally got in on time to arrest him."

"Did Lucius know who it was eventually?" Tony asked.

"Oh yeah, that was the really strange part," Harry said. "While the Ministry were surrounding him and taking his wand, the effect of the Polyjuice Potion wore off, and soon Draco was standing in front of his father in Professor Zambini's robes. I think Lucius was too shocked to put up much of a fight after that."

"Whoa," Tony said, awestruck. "That _was _a big mission…"

"We were just talking about it before you came," said Ron. "We all, except Harry at the time, had to go back with the Ministry to make official statements on record – just give our testimonies again now that they would take them seriously – so we didn't see what happened afterward. It was just Draco in there, and Harry under his cloak."

"Nothing really happened though," Harry informed them. "A Ministry worker came in to tell Draco he wouldn't be charged with working on Lucius' side – they'd be stupid to, really – then he left, and Draco still didn't do anything. I thought it wasn't fair of me to stay invisible now that I no longer really needed to, so I took off the cloak. Considering what he had just done, Draco was taking it really well."

"Even if his father is a gigantic git of evil," Ron said, "he was still his father. By now we've realised that Draco didn't genuinely want to be on his side, but it still would have taken a lot to dob his own father in. I know I couldn't have done it to Dad."

"_Your_ father wouldn't have ever put you in that position, Ron," Hermione said.

"What's happened now?" Tony asked. "Is Dumbledore back? Where's Draco now?"

"Dumbledore's back as Headmaster of Hogwarts, thankfully," George said, "and we're students again. Mum had taken us out before, but after all was explained, we were re-enrolled and plan to kick some serious Slytherin Arse in Quidditch."

"Draco didn't want to come with us today," Harry said. "Although, I can't say I blame him, really. He has loads of stuff to talk with the Ministry about too, and I'd say this has all taken a far greater emotional toll on him than it has on any of us."

"Will he have to deal with a lot of Malfoy Manor stuff, now that his dad's gone?" Tony said.

"Well, he is still underage, just," Hermione said. "So he won't be given all responsibility. Now that Lucius will go to Azkaban, Narcissa Malfoy will probably have to do a lot more. Having said that, I'm sure things will change for Draco anyway."

"Not just in the legal sense, either," Fred said. "How do you think his house at school will take him now? Slytherin prides itself on being evil gits – even if not all of them are – and surely it will get out that Draco was the one to overthrow Lucius and thwart You-Know-Who's plans."

"I don't know what's going to happen there," Harry said, looking particularly sorry for the young Malfoy now.

"So…would you say he's your friend now?" Trina queried.

Harry mused on the question. "That's still a little weird, considering the Malfoy history. I know things are obviously different, but I still don't see friendship, chess and hot chocolate following. He did stand up with us against Voldemort, but that was as much for himself and his own morals as it was for us. I don't know how it's going to change, but I don't think it'll have a happily-ever-after ending like that."

"Life kinda bites," Tony said, looking rather disappointed that the story wasn't the heroic fairytale of childhood stories.

"When are you going?" Hermione said to the muggle girls. "Will we be likely to see you again before you leave on the rest of your…what was it…OE?"

"I hope so," Tony said. "Even though we've just heard the story, it would still feel unfinished if this was the last we saw of you. I'd be interested to see Draco again before we left, and Dumbledore – he always gives the moral at the end of the story."

"Will we be able to go inside Hogwarts?" Trina asked. "Can muggles get in?"

"Well," Hermione started intelligently, "in '_Hogwarts, A History'_, it tells about how Hogwarts is disguised to be hidden from muggle view, but doesn't mention about them coming in. I'm not sure, but perhaps you could if Dumbledore came with you. After all, he knows all sorts of magic that would probably help."

"Did you hear that, Tony?" Trina said excitedly, bouncing up and down. "We could go inside Hogwarts!"

Tony looked reserved. "That sounds cool…but wouldn't it be too odd, do you think? I mean, muggles don't usually just walk into that school. We'd be stared at like we're golden screwts with wings."

"But- but-" Trina couldn't believe Tony was being difficult about it. "It's _Hogwarts_! We have to go in!"

"Well anyway," Harry interrupted the debate, "we'll likely be seeing you in the next few days. Dumbledore said something about meeting us all in Diagon Alley this weekend. Muggles can go in there – after all, Hermione's parents have. I expect he'll contact you about it."

"Well, at least we'll visit _someplace_ magical," Trina muttered sourly, loudly enough for Tony to hear, and she slumped further down in the sofa.

The warm friendly hubbub of Diagon Alley that Saturday morning was almost enough to convince Harry that the past few weeks had never happened. Witches and wizards scurried about their business, and the occasional senior student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry passing by chattered freely amongst themselves. Of course, when they spied Harry, they were engrossed in whispers and speculations, which brought Harry harshly back down the reality he now lived in. Not that he should have been surprised. After all, even _he_ was losing count of how many times he had faced Voldemort and survived. Except now he was not the only one subjected to scrutiny – Ron and Hermione also received a share of wonder, much to Ron's delight. Being in the spotlight was a foreign feeling to him, and he milked it for all it was worth, enjoying the attention.

Harry was relieved to note that so far he had not heard speculation of Draco's involvement. He presumed this meant word hadn't got out at all, because surely if it had, the betrayal would have been front-page news. As it was, all the Daily Prophet was crying out was the norm of yet another victory for the seemingly invincible Harry Potter.

Harry had arranged to meet Ron and Hermione outside of small café at one end of Diagon Alley, so upon exiting Gringotts Wizard Bank and pocketing his withdrawal of galleons, he glanced upward and prepared to start heading to the appointed meeting place.

His plan of action was interrupted by someone walking into him from behind, followed by a loud, "oof".

Harry, surprised, turned around to see Draco Malfoy recovering himself from his near-sprawl, and rearranging his robes, having just left Gringotts himself. To Harry's surprise, Draco seemed to have opted for the gel-free-hair appearance long-term, as he was performing the now-familiar action of shaking it out of his eyes.

"Sorry," the Slytherin muttered. "Wasn't looking…"

"I see that," Harry replied with a smile. "How are you doing?"

Draco obviously still found it strange to be having such a casual conversation with Harry Potter, that could even be defined as friendly, as he floundered for a moment.

"Oh…fine," he said, even though they both must have known he wasn't.

There were a few moments of awkward fidgeting silence before Draco continued, "Father's going to Azkaban, as I'm sure you would have guessed."

"Yeah. Will you still be staying at Malfoy Manor?"

"Most likely, but I won't have to worry about that until the holidays. It's just coping with student life until then."

"Are you going to be okay in Slytherin? Now that, y'know…"

"I haven't heard anything to suggest they know what I did, as the Ministry have been tactfully silent, so I should be fine. So far they've mistaken my quiet sullen mood for anger that my father was discovered and put away."

Harry was silently relieved on Draco Malfoy's behalf. He fidgeted while thinking of how to phrase his next question. "Malfoy…will you… I mean…"

Draco arched one dusky blonde eyebrow.

"Do you think you'll be…re-sorted…or something? I mean," Harry quickly elaborated, "if you only went in Slytherin because Lucius wanted it…and you don't really fit there…well…"

Draco allowed a wry smile to spread across his face as he looked at Harry. "Don't fit there? As much as my placement would have appeased my father, I doubt I would have been put into a house opposing my own character."

"But-"

"Consider what the Sorting Hat sings about it, Potter. 'Cunning folk' – even _you_ would have to admit a sizable element of cunning factored into the plan of taking back Hogwarts. 'Shrewd', 'ambitious'…surely only someone of great ambition and focus on themselves to achieve that ambition, could betray their own family.

"I'm where I belong, Potter," Draco Malfoy concluded. "Although perhaps I'm just in the minority that don't have ambition contrary to what the Gryffindors regard as permissible."

"Oh," Harry said quietly, for he could think of no other response. "Well, you could…come see us at school…I mean, me and Ron, and Hermione…if you wanted…"

Draco looked like he didn't know whether to be touched, or repulsed. "The gesture is noted, Potter, but I doubt the weasel desires my company."

"Oh, he won't mind," Harry said hurriedly. "He knows that-"

"We're not friends, Potter," Draco interrupted him. "We both know that – there's no use trying to deny the fact, merely for sake of sponsoring a Malfoy Charity at school."

Although Harry almost protested at Draco's implication that the offer was only given out of pity, he knew what the blonde meant – they had stood together, but remained apart. Friendship between such different people was unrealistic.

"We fought for the same purpose," Draco said, "but we are not on the same side. I do the things I do, for the pure reason that it is what I want. A Gryffindor heart is not so centred on self. It is possible that that in future we'll be in a conflict again – maybe side by side, maybe opposed. Whichever it will be has nothing to do with a loyalty to you, or Dumbledore."

In the back of his mind, Harry thought it ironic that although Draco was the one with the most troubles right now, and least support, that it was Harry being gently reminded of the facts like he was a flustered child.

Passing students who had seen Draco and Harry conversing in the street were stopping to witness the unusual sight, and what would become of it. Harry supposed they were expecting to see threats, which only weeks ago would have been the norm.

Draco had obviously seen them too as he looked over Harry's shoulder, before returning his gaze to him and saying quietly, "When you first turned me away, in our first year at Hogwarts, it just created a separation that would have inevitably been made anyway."

This roundabout way of reassuring Harry their antagonism wasn't his fault echoed in Harry's head as Draco stepped around him and began to walk away.

"Potter!" Malfoy's voice came from a short distance down the street, as if the boy had just thought of an insult to throw as an afterthought, for the benefit of the onlookers.

Harry turned.

"See you in school," Malfoy finished, in an air that sounded ominously threatening enough to appease their audience, but Harry noted a decreased malevolence, and Draco gave one last scripted smirk that was lacking integrity, before disappearing among the other wizards of Diagon Alley.

And Harry smiled back.

            "Did you explore much?" Ron asked Trina and Tony as the two muggles walked into the café to join him and Hermione.

            "Yeah, we were around and about," Tony said, non-specifically.

"Honeydukes is the best!" Ron said enthusiastically. "And Zonko's Joke Shop."

"If you go for that sort of thing," Trina said, pulling up a stool at the counter. "I preferred Eeyelops Owl Emporium, and there were some books with gorgeous pictures of animals at the bookstore."

"Oh, great," Ron said, looking like he didn't think it was great at all.

Before Hermione could say anything in agreement to Trina's preferences and her enthusiasm over something in a book, she was distracted by a figure that had just entered the café. Spying her sudden shift of attention, Ron and the two muggle girls followed her gaze to see the new arrival Hermione was looking at. The person was keeping an unusually low profile, considering he was usually flanked by oversized bullies and adoring girls. Draco Malfoy quietly made his way to the man behind the counter to get a drink in a paper cup to take out of the shop.

His hair was falling freely across his face, and his lack of effort in upkeeping his hair in its typical impeccable style was mirrored in his evidently tired face. He had been keeping to himself, not loudly speaking, and had been keeping his eyes down as he walked into the café. He slowly lifted his gaze when his drink was being made, and looked slowly around the room. His eyes nonchalantly wandered over the small gathering of witches and wizards by the window, and the two boys excitedly chattering about their classes, until his gaze finally landed on the four people looking at him concernedly.

Draco almost jumped at the surprise of seeing them, and fidgeted a little, unsure of what to do or say. He settled for looking down near his feet, until he had a steaming cup passed to him over the counter, and Draco paid the man and slowly began to move toward the door. After a moment's hesitation, he changed direction and approached the inquisitive people staring at him, but he made no move to sit down.

"Uh, hi," he started, licking his lips nervously and clearing his throat. "Is there a reason you're staring at me? Weasel? Did I forget to hide the Dark Mark on my nose?"

No one smiled at his attempt at a joke, and even Ron remained quiet.

"We were just wondering," Hermione started, "are you alright?"

" 'Alright', is a relative term, Granger," Draco replied.

"Well, you can always come and talk to us, if you need to."

"I must have done something right in the Gryffindor Eye to have that invitation extended to me twice within five minutes," Draco said, and the beginnings of a smile pulled at the edge of his mouth. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Potter: the gesture is noted, but remains unlikely."

"I understand," Hermione said, and the small group was quiet.

"Thanks anyway, Malfoy, for what you did," came a voice, and they all looked at Ron, surprised. "What? I'm not allowed to say it? Okay, so it felt really weird and I wouldn't mind if I never repeated it…"

"It was good of you, Ron," Hermione said, looking at him perhaps a little longer than she needed to, before returning her gaze to Draco. "We all thank you."

"Me too," Tony said, cheerily. "I don't quite see how you did anything in particular for me to be thanking you for, but I thank you heartily just the same, since it seems to be the popular emotion."

Draco shifted uncomfortably on his feet, nervously gripping his paper cup that had steam curling from a hole in the plastic lid. "Well, anyway, I should be going now."

"So, we're probably not going to see you again," Trina said, motioning to Tony and herself. "Right?"

"That might be right," agreed the young Malfoy, and he looked at his feet for a moment again. "Y'know, if I wasn't so wary of you quoting this, I'd say you weren't so bad, for muggles."

"That's near enough to a compliment," Trina said happily.

An awkward silence hung in the air, before Draco turned to head to the door.

"Hey," Tony called after him, and Draco stilled, before slowly turning his head to look over his shoulder at her. "Merry Christmas Puddin'…" she finished, smiling.

Draco grimaced a little. "That was about as enjoyable as Fear Fall," he said as the memory of his hangover came back to him, "which, I might add, wasn't that scary, you know."

Then he was gone.

When Harry finally got down to the café to meet Ron and Hermione, he found Tony and Trina with them already, and the four were engrossed in serious conversation.

"Hey," he said, by way of greeting, before sitting down to join them.

"Hey, Harry," Ron said. "You're not sounding too bright."

"Oh, it's nothing," said Harry, his voice low as he drifted back to the memory of the conversation he'd just had. "I just ran into Malfoy at Gringotts – well, that is to say, _he_ ran into _me_ – and we talked for a bit."

"That explains a lot," Ron said. "He passed in here just before you arrived, and looked a bit out of sorts, like he'd just gotten back onto the ground after riding a drunk hippogriff backwards."

"Did he say anything?"

"We talked a little," Hermione said. "He didn't look up to socialising."

"He was sharp-witted enough to call me Weasel when he said hello," Ron said, not bitterly, "so some things can be relied upon, regardless of who fights with who. I'd say he'll be fine."

"Right." Harry examined the whorls of the wood-markings in the countertop, his mind drifting.

"I see you've discovered the pleasures of a good Rainbow drink," Harry heard a voice say, and he looked up to see Dumbledore looking at Tony in approval. "Apparently they occasionally have a piece of gold from the pot of it at the end of the rainbow from whence it came, but I've never been so lucky as to find one."

"Tastes rather funny, actually," Tony said, frankly. "I prefer the mono-flavours."

"Ah," said Dumbledore good-naturedly, as he sat down at a seat behind them, and the others swivelled on their stools to face him.

"I trust it will not take you long to settle back into the natural scheme of things," Dumbledore said to Harry, Ron and Hermione, his eyes twinkling. "I am happy to be back at Hogwarts, as I rather missed the marvellous feasts held there."

"It's a bit odd to be back after everything that's happened," Harry said. "Neville, Seamus and Dean said they don't remember much of anything from when Lucius was in charge – the potion he was using must have dampened their memories, I guess."

"Indeed. Well, I dare say you and others at Hogwarts will have ample things to talk about in the next few days. I hear talk of how you battled Voldemort twice, went up against a hundred Death Eaters, and saved the Wizarding World from ruin on several occasions.  No doubt they will be interested in a more accurate account first hand."

Harry smiled abashedly, and Dumbledore's eyes twinkled in amusement.

"What's going to happen to Malfoy?" Ron asked. "Is he staying at Hogwarts, or will he be transferred to escape complications and stuff?"

"Yes, he will stay," said Dumbledore. "I see no cause for him to leave. Indeed, we owe him a great many thanks for his services, in both coming to your aid when against Voldemort, and recovering the school."

"How did he do that, sir?" Harry said. "I mean, he had to get another Death Eater to leave before coming to us himself to give us back our wands. Were they both in on it?"

"Draco looked for me immediately upon being released from your dark prison, to show me where you were being kept. It was thanks to Fawkes seeing his lost wanderings that he was able to find me, and I, in turn, could come to you. It was his own idea to pose as a Death Eater, using what little knowledge of Death Eaters he had, to acquire a cloak and return your wands to you – which I had been carrying ever since my dismissal. I do not know what he said to your initial guard to distract him from his post – although I imagine it would have been yet another display of his unfortunately often misguided genius."

Tony swivelled back around on her stool to loudly slurp the dregs of her multi-coloured multi-flavoured drink up the straw, and pull something from an inside pocket to write on.

"And what of you two?" Dumbledore said to Trina and Tony, although only Trina was looking at him. "Now that we are thankfully put back to the rightful state of things, and for your role I thank you, what do you intend to do now?

"Go on the rest of the OE, I guess," Trina replied, factually. "We'll base ourselves somewhere – maybe England or Italy…or anyplace else, really – and travel around when we get a spare moment from working."

"Which will be plenty," Tony added, still facing whatever she was writing on. "I don't anticipate working dawn-to-dusk."

"Will you have enough money for all your plans?" Harry asked. "Because I'm sure that all the expenses we brought you when in New Zealand put a dent in your available funds."

"Hmm, that it did," mused Tony. "But we'll manage. And if we don't, we'll run out of money, appeal to an embassy and get a free cargo-class flight home."

"How much did our tickets cost?" Harry asked. "The flight tickets we never used? They alone would be a lot."

"Well that was actually where we were shown to be a big lot of idiot," Trina said. "We couldn't have booked your tickets without a passport number for each of you, which of course, we didn't have. So we never got the tickets."

"So in essence," Tony's voice came past a large smile, although a little muffled as she still had her head down, "Trina and I got a free flight here, which adds on a bit of funds we would have lost."

"All the same," Dumbledore said brightly, "it seems we are indebted. Unfortunately I know little of the muggle lifestyle, although I would assumed galleons would be of little use to you."

"That would be right," Trina said with a smile.

"In that case, the best I can offer you is reassurance that we will be available to you if you should ever need our service."

Trina contemplated these words, before excitedly saying, "So we get to stay in contact? Coz that would be great! I figured it would pretty much be thankyou-and-goodbye, but it would be so cool if we stayed in contact, and- oh, but how could we do that? Regular post, I mean, muggle post, wouldn't reach you."

"The least I can offer you is a small token of gratitude," Dumbledore said, reaching into his robes to withdraw a small drawstring pouch, "so in here you will find enough to purchase an owl of your choice from Eeyelops Owl Emporium."

"Oh, that's schnazzy!" Tony exclaimed excitedly, spinning around, to accept the pouch with wonder. "Our own owl!"

"Can we visit Hogwarts?" Trina asked. "Or can't muggles get in a magical place like that?"

"I'm sure Miss Granger has told you of the disguise preventing muggles from viewing it," answered Dumbledore, "but I see nothing to stop muggles entering if the need should arise – after all, Diagon Alley is magical, and I have met a number of remarkable muggles here."

"What do you mean by 'if the need should arise'?" Trina picked up on the minor hitch. "We can't go in now?"

"As there is no purpose or need," Dumbledore said regretfully, "I do not think it would be prudent at this time."

Trina looked extremely disappointed.

"But I expect," the old man continued, "especially as you have means of remaining in contact now, there may come a time when you do."

Trina found this idea a little comforting, but was still despondent at not seeing it in the foreseeable future.

"We've been to your home," Ron said to her, "so you'll probably get to ours sometime. Well, I mean, where we are most often, obviously."

"Okay," Trina said resignedly. "If you get a big adventure, call me."

Hermione laughed lightly at this, before addressing Tony, "What were you writing?"

"Oh," said Tony, as if she'd forgotten she'd been doing anything and had only just been told, "writing the postcard to my parents back home. Of course, they think Trina and I are still in Auckland. They wouldn't suspect anything yet, as even if we'd stayed in Auckland, we'd only have been there for a few days. Oh-!"

"What?" Trina asked, beginning to look panicked.

"The stuff!" Tony said to her, before turning to Dumbledore to continue, "When we were brought over here, we of course didn't have all our things. The flat back in Auckland still has bags of clothes in it! And Harry's glasses, come to think of it. How are we going to get them back? And this key-" she drew a key from an outside pocket of her jacket, "-we'll need to get the key back for Trina's sister when she comes back!"

Trina was now looking quite alarmed too, and Dumbledore raised his hand in a gesture similar to that of calming the Great Hall full of panicked students.

"It will all be fine, I am certain," Dumbledore said with assurance. "I'm sure, with the aid of magic, all will be settled. With direction to this residence, I can organise for your things to be returned to you, and delegate someone to finish matters – perhaps even organise for a spectacular complimentary cleaning of the place."

"Oh, that's okay then," Tony said, relieved, passing Dumbledore the small metal flat key as Trina asked for a quill and parchment from a nearby café worker, to record directions.

"And so we come to the end of this matter," Dumbledore said in conclusion. "_Nil_ _Desperandum,_ as they say."

"Who's 'they'?" Tony asked. "Whoever it is probably doesn't get out much."

"It is a quaint little Latin turn I am quite partial to that translates to 'nothing to be despaired of'," Dumbledore explained. "All is well."

All was silent within the group at this conclusion.

"Cool…" Tony said, filling airspace. "…well, gonna get my owl now!" She bounded off her stool and headed for the door.

"_Our_ owl!" Trina corrected, quickly following her.

Harry watched the two girls disappear out the door, before returning his gaze to Dumbledore. "Sir," he said quietly, "what will Voldemort do now, do you think?"

"I do not know, Harry," the old wizard grew serious as he looked at the remaining three. "I expect much is merely returned to how it was, and he will only be planning another attempt of attack. Be assured, though, that a repeat performance of the infiltration of Hogwarts allowing you to be taken will not be repeated. I will see to it that no such weakness remains."

Knowing that Hogwarts was entirely safe came as much reassurance to Harry.

"I trust you will enjoy your day," Dumbledore said, standing. "As for myself, I have things to attend to since being reinstated at Hogwarts. It seems to me that Lucius is not as effective at being Headmaster as he thinks himself to be. Some work has rather fallen quite behind."

Harry, Ron and Hermione laughed among themselves as Dumbledore departed from their company and headed out the door.

"_Nil Desperandum_," Hermione said. "I'll have to remember that one."

After a milkshake each, further talk of overseas experiences of their own, and appreciation of having a Chocolate Frog again – that subject broached by Ron, naturally – the trio exited the café, and ran to meet their two muggle friends just leaving the Owl Emporium, Tony carrying a large cage holding a magnificent black owl, with flecks of silver on its wings and around the eyes.

"I figured a black owl would be less likely to be seen flying about at night holding letters," Tony said to them with a proud smile.

"Oh, whatever, Tony!" retorted Trina. "You just _liked_ it better! And there's nothing weird about seeing an owl fly at night – that's when they're _supposed_ to fly!"

"I'll call him 'Quartz'," Tony said, ignoring Trina.

"Quartz is light – unless it's the impure form of flint," Hermione said. "That name doesn't fit at all."

"I know, isn't it great?" Tony smiled.

"Who says _you_ get to name him?" Trina said. "The owl belongs to both of us. And how do you know it's a 'him' anyway?"

"He just looks manly," Tony answered.

"This subject is not over, just so you know – I want a say in what we call it."

"Sure, we'll talk about it later," Tony said, before holding up the cage and saying to the owl, "but you like that name, don't you, Quartz? And it's not nice to call an animal a name it doesn't like."

"Where are you guys going now?" Harry asked the two girls, putting a stop to the squabbling for now.

"Before we met you guys at the café, Dumbledore saw us and told us how to get back to the place we're staying," Trina said. "And I'm sure he'll bring our stuff there – and return the Hallensteins clothes to you three and Draco. After that we'll be moving on, but we'll let you know by owl what happens."

"Be sure to tell Draco about Quartz, so that he can expect letters too," Tony said. "Whenever we go somewhere we'll send the owl back with a forwarding address so you know where to reply to. The change leftover from the galleons Dumbledore gave us to buy him will pay for deliveries."

"What happens when it runs out?" Ron queried.

"We hit you up for more, of course." Tony laughed. "We'll figure something out."

Conversation lulled, before Trina said, "Well, I guess we'll be going then."

They all shuffled awkwardly, and Tony mumbled, "This is the sentimental part I hate…"

Trina and Tony hugged the other three in turn – Tony rather hurriedly and awkwardly – and they prepared to leave.

"Don't forget us and magic too quickly," Hermione said, "although you have the owl to remind you."

"We won't, and there's not just that," Tony replied in glee.

Her four companions looked at her quizzically, as she fumbled in her pocket and withdrew a sticky, though still evidently shiny, lump of gold.

"I guess I got Dumbledore's lucky glass of Rainbow drink," she said.

"So that's two things to remind you," said Harry. "Now you have no excuse."

Minutes later, he was smiling at them sadly as they turned and began to walk away to experience the adventure they had planned for years, which would certainly be different to the one they'd got.

Trina turned back and waved as the sunlight of Diagon Alley illuminated the vivid blue of Tony's hair, bringing the girl strange looks as she walked away from them with the owl that Harry was sure would end up being called Quartz.

_A/N: This final chapter was the longest one of the entire story, totalling over 10,000 words. (Now would you believe me when I tell you I did it all in a day? Morning to night!) This story has been in the cauldron for almost a year, and now I can't believe it's finished! I feel kinda sucky that these characters I've worked with for so long are characters I can't even have rights to! I guess that's a consequence of borrowing someone else's property – you bond with it!_

_This story gave me heaps of stresses and difficulties, on account of the fact I didn't have a plot until at least halfway through, so I had to try and effectively tie everything up. As a result of the initial lack of planning, I'm sure a sleuth would pick up on blatant errors. (I'm not talking about grammatical errors – although I'm sure there are those too!)_

_I've tried to adequately end the story, so the reader should be satisfied (did I succeed?) while at the same time leaving it open for a possible sequel. (The idea had been a trilogy – 1st story this one; 2nd story set in Hogwarts 7th year; 3rd story post-graduation). For a while I've been saying to Trina that after this story I'll just be doing one-post ficlets, as I can't afford the time and commitment for another story. But now that this is done (and I really feel like something has died) I know that I'll soon feel the hankering to continue it – except if/when I do, I'll have a detailed plot planned before I start!_

_Even though I'm not getting an Oscar, I'll give my speech anyway: I want to thank Trina, for pushing me to write this in the first place and allowing me to write her a different life in my story (complete with situations where I'm right and she's wrong), I want to thank my muse for allowing me to come up with this, and most of all, I want to thank all the people who have read this, and especially the ones who have contacted me to offer opinions and encouragement._

_Farewell. Nil Desperandum._


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